Guava pests’ genome decoded by Indian Council of Agricultural Research

Staff Correspondent

SHILLONG: For the first time, researchers from ICAR Research Complex for NEH, Umiam, have mapped the mitochondrial genome of a beetle1. Known as guava trunk borer, the beetle thrives on the guava and litchi trees in the northeastern region of India. To address this issue, an international research team, which included scientists from the ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, the 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 Meghalaya.

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. Aristobia reticulator (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is also known as guava trunk borer, litchi stem borer or litchi longhorn beetle. It is as an important pest of guava and now litchi in India. This pest has been distributed in many countries (Nepal, India, China, and Vietnam). In India, it is mainly restricted to northeastern region of the country. To address this issue and to generate the genomic resources, especially for the coleopteran family, Cerambycidae, a complete mitochondrial genome was successfully sequenced and characterized.

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