State’s beetle genome mapped

SHILLONG: For the first time, researchers from ICAR Research Complex for NEH Umiam have mapped the mitochondrial genome of a beetle. Known as guava trunk borer, the beetle thrives on the guava and litchi trees in the Northeastern region of India.
To address the issue, an international research team, which included scientists from the ICAR Research Complex, Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana and the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi, has sequenced the mitochondrial genome of the beetle collected from the state.
Decoding its mitochondrial genes will be useful for DNA bar-coding, a method of identifying species of different organisms based on a short and standardised fragment of genomic DNA. Aristobiareticulator (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is also known as guava trunk borer, litchi stem borer or litchi longhorn beetle.
To address the issue and to generate the genomic resources especially for the coleopteran family, Cerambycidae, a complete mitochondrial genome was successfully sequenced and characterized. Dr G T Behere, Principal Scientist (Agril Entomology) and Principal Investigator of the project added that the size of complete mitochondrial genome of A.reticulator was determined to be 15838 bp long and circular in nature and has total of 13 protein coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and one control region (A+T-rich region).