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Genomics to improve farming
By Ijaz Ahmad
Rao
Biotechnology
is having an increasingly important impact on various
sectors and disciplines. Combined with genomics, proteomics
and metabolomics, biotechnology can greatly aid our ability
to confront the challenges of production, management, and
sustainability of agriculture and economic development.
It can enhance crops yield and quality, develop
stress-tolerant crop varieties, improve nutritional content
of foods and neutralise effect of food contaminants, and
find new ways to face threats to bio-security.
These issues were discussed at a recent international
symposium on “Genomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics: Recent
Trends in Biotechnology” held by the Department of
Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG), University of The
Punjab, in collaboration with the Higher Education
Commission, National Biotechnology Commission, Core Group in
Biological Sciences.
More than 190 delegates, some from Europe, participated in
the symposium whose main objective was to provide new ways
to use animal, plants and microbes, in order to improve
quality of environment and economic sustainability of a
country, to commercialise indigenous technologies and to
help bridge the gap between global scientific communities in
terms of existing and expanding frontiers of genomics,
proteomics and metabolomics.
Environmental and political considerations have created a
growing demand for plants-derived bio-fuels like ethanol and
bio-diesel. It is appropriate that Pakistan should support
research efforts in genomics and proteomics. It has enormous
potential in agricultural both in cropping and livestock
sectors. There is a need to fill actual productivity and
potential productivity gap by adopting appropriate
strategies and modern technologies to meet such problems as
low resource use efficiency in agriculture, land
degradation, water-logging and salinity, low organic matter,
and low level of technology.
Despite continued progress in genetic improvement, optimal
levels of crop productivity or desirable nutritional balance
has not yet been achieved. Seed metabolism must be modified
substantially to produce food-feed as well as industrial and
medical products to satisfy future evolving societal
demands. Such modifications need integration seamlessly into
the complex but poorly understood processes of seed
metabolism and development. Genomics offer new opportunities
to address seed performance and productivity, to develop
nutritionally desirable seeds, and to achieve industrial and
pharmaceutical applications.
Collaborations between genomic researchers and plant
breeders are crucial to enhance crops yield. With the help
of tools of modern biotechnology and methods of genomics and
proteomics, our future challenges of food, feed and energy
sectors can be addressed. This new knowledge will change the
future of breeding for improved strains of all domesticated
species of crops, livestock, fish, and trees either through
transgenomics or genomics-based conventional breeding.
“The first plant genome that has been completely sequenced
is a small model species, Arabidopsis thaliana. The genomic
sequencing of economically important crops is also being
undertaken”. The most advanced are the several public and
private gene sequencing projects on rice, all of which are
now in the public domain. A maize genome-sequencing project
is also in progress. Rice, maize and other cereals share a
large number of common genes.
Several other genome sequencing projects of at least 130
different plant species are in progress. The plant genetic
resources are the vital components of plant biodiversity,
precious heritage of mankind, therefore they need to be
collected and conserved before they are lost for ever.
There are about 6,000 plant species in Pakistan; out of
these only 1,010 species are identified as having medicinal
value. Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC)
established a “gene bank” at the Institute of Agricultural
Biotechnology and Genetic Resources (IABGR) and the National
Agricultural Research Center (NARC), which contains more
than 30,000 genes and DNA of different plant species. The
germplasm of major cereals, minor cereals, food legumes,
oilseeds, vegetables, fruits, fiber crops, fodder and
forages and medicinal plants are available from this ‘gene
bank” for scientists and researcher for the development of
new varieties. More recently PARC has established with NARC
a new institute the National Institute for Genomics and
Advance Biotechnology (NIGAB); which will conduct research
on structural and functional genomic of both plants and
animals.
In Pakistan, there are hundreds of scientists working at
more than 29 centres conducting biotech research in
different areas. These institutions have, to their credit, a
number of major achievements in modern biotechnology. A few
of them have developed plant expression vectors for the
introduction of foreign genes into crops like Bt pesticidal
genes used in cotton and rice against bollworm, rice
leaf-folder, top leaf bore in sugarcane.
The use of new techniques for understanding and modifying
the genetically modified organisms (GMO) has led to
understanding the role of proteins through proteomics and
metabolomics in order to have better knowledge of multi
proteins expressed in a particular plant in specific
environmental condition. These developments have been
accompanied by public concerns as to the power of the new
technologies and the safety and ethics of their use for
improving human health, agriculture and the environment.
Scientists are trying to explore how genetics and
environmental factors work together to cause human diseases
which can be helpful in the prevention and treatment of many
illnesses and as well as individualise the therapeutical
strategies. There are extensive efforts under way to
identify the genetic and environmental basis of common
diseases like cancer, asthma and diabetes. The present
challenge is how emerging scientific discoveries, such as
those in the rapidly evolving fields of genomics, proteomics
and metabolomics, amongst others, can be translated into
safe applications leading to new varieties of crops, drugs
and products.
Courtesy:
The DAWN |
Pakissan.com;
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