Another team claims to have decoded hilsa genome
A day after The Daily Star ran a report on genome sequencing of the national fish hilsa by a team of Bangladeshi researchers, another group yesterday claimed to have achieved the same feat.
Prof Dr Samsul Alam of Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetics at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), also coordinator of the research team, revealed the matter through a press conference on the campus.
“BAU started the research in December 2015. After three years of work, we have finally disclosed the matter on genome sequencing of hilsa,” he said, adding that a declaration ceremony will be held tomorrow on the university campus in Mymensingh.
However, in a press release, the BAU research team mentioned that they were yet to estimate the number of genes present in the hilsa genome. “The estimation of the number of genes and their characterisation is going on,” the press release said.
The other members of the research team are: Prof Dr Bazlur Rahman Mollah of poultry science, Prof Dr Shahidul Islam of biotechnology, and Prof Dr Mohammad Golam Quader Khan of fisheries biology and genetics.
The team collected hilsa samples from the Meghna river and Bay of Bengal. Prof Samsul said they have submitted their publication to the website of GenBank sequence database of NCBI in August 2017.
Meanwhile, Prof Haseena Khan of the biochemistry and molecular biology department at Dhaka University, who led another research on hilsa genome sequencing, said their initial data analysis revealed that there are 31,295 genes, which is comparable to Atlantic herring genome containing 28,335 genes.
“Our data was found to be 95 percent complete. This suggests very good assembly and completeness. We have combined two best technologies -- Illumina and PacBio sequencing technologies to obtain almost full coverage,” she added.
About the BAU research, she said, “BAU has submitted the genome data of only mitochondrial DNA and not nuclear DNA. They do not mention the number of genes present in the genome. Genes are the main features of a genome.”
“Mitochondrial DNA sequencing done by BAU and submitted in the NCBI database alone can't be called genomic sequencing,” Prof Haseena said, adding that their research was unique.
Prof Haseena said they have in no way tried to “snatch” any credit which genuinely belongs to someone else. “They [the BAU researchers] did their work and we did ours.” “We have announced a work which with international collaboration has generated more complete and robust data of the hilsa genome and we want to work together with all other groups who have a similar interest, which is in the interest of the country,” she said.