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KARACHI, Oct 15 (APP):The University of Karachi has successfully completed Pakistan’s first-ever genome sequencing of a mangrove species, marking a major milestone in environmental and genetic research.
This breakthrough in plant genomics and climate resilience research was jointly conducted by Professor Dr Kamran Azim from KU’s Department of Biochemistry, Dr Waqar Ahmed from KU’s Institute of Environmental Studies, and Dr Afsheen Arif from KU’s Dr A Q Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering.
A seminar was conducted at the KU’s KIBGE’s Jinnah Auditorium on Wednesday to share the outcomes of a breakthrough in plant genomics and climate resilience research for the completion of the first Pakistan mangrove Genome Avicenna marina.
The purpose was to unlock insights into salt tolerance and climate adaptation advance conservation strategies for fragile coastal ecosystem. It open doors for biotechnology and sustainable development.
Dr Waqar Ahmed during his presentation discussed that mangroves are woody shrub and tropical plants that grow well in the inter-tidal zones of tropical to sub-tropical latitudes. Globally, mangrove covers about 200,000 km areas and belongs to family Acanthaceae that comprises of more than 400 species of polyphyletic group of tree.
He mentioned that these trees possess unique Physio-morphological adaptations and tolerance against hypersaline environment, tidal cycles, and soil chemistry.
He mentioned that among mangroves, Avicennia marina (Forssk., Vierh., gray mangroves) is one of the keystone species of the genus and well-distributed species across different latitudes mostly through the dispersal of diasporas by sea and wind.
He said that gray mangroves have been divided into categories based on their habitat and importance to the community structure. The mangroves in Indus Delta are very important for the ecosystem and know for its uniqueness around the world.
Dr Afsheen Arif mentioned that the previous studies on this topic were from UAE, India and China in the year 2021, 2023 and 2024. A new mangrove database mangrove is also established by China. This particular study mangrove 44, 605 predicted protein coding genomes.
She described about salinome the set of genes for salt tolerant mechanism this mechanism and genes can further help the researchers for climate mitigation.
She also described that functional enrichment analysis highlighted genes involved in stress adaptation, including 409 genes related to salt stress and 337 genes linked to abscisic acid response.
Dr Afsheen Arif shared that biotechnology applications of the mangrove genome include the use of its genes and associated microbes to develop new products and solve environmental problems.
She added that key applications are in bioremediation, where microbes are used to clean up pollution, pharmaceuticals for creating new drugs and antimicrobial agents, industrial processes by harnessing enzymes for tasks like waste treatment, biofuel production and producing compounds like bioplastics and biosurfactants, green synthesis, mangrove plants, rich in phytochemicals, can be used to synthesize nanoparticles in a more sustainable way, which have applications in both biomedical and environmental fields.
According to her, mangrove genomes can also be used to engineer other plants for traits like salt tolerance.
Professor Dr Kamran Azim described the finding of this genome by quality of DNA, library preparation, sequencing technology, estimation of scaffolding, completeness, number of genes by functions. He mentioned that this genome sequence will be a milestone for upcoming researches in the mangrove field for Pakistan.
He informed the audience that various plants and some animals were studied through genome sequencing to boost their export to other countries. Professor Dr Kaman Azim deep dive into the DNA extraction, methodology, quality and quantity.
At the end, the KU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi appreciated the researchers’ team and their work and also emphasizes for university teachers to work in collaboration to produce quality research.
He admired the work of research with limited resources and mentioned that their work will get wide reorganization soon.