SYDNEY, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Australian research unlocked the previously unknown DNA information on the endangered numbat, which marks a breakthrough in the conservation efforts of the marsupial.
Researchers from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and DNA Zoo Australia used the sample from Perth Zoo to generate and sequence a draft genome assembly, resulting in a chromosome-length genome including around 3.2 billion pieces of DNA. A total of 21,465 proteins are also identified to help investigate the evolutionary adaptation of numbat's diet.
Associate Professor Parwinder Kaur, from UWA's School of Agriculture and Environment, told Xinhua on Thursday that they analyzed and organized those billions of DNA pieces, and oriented them in the correct order.
"Basically, the genome is the blueprint code of life for any particular species. Just like the first human genome sequenced, we could do personalized medicine or clone technology with the code from numbats."
"It not just helps protect the species from genetic diseases, but also the understanding of biodiversity and the evolution of this planet," she said.
Kaur explained, for example, it could bring the thylacine's resurrection a step closer, as numbat is one of its closest living marsupial relatives with as much as 95 percent of their DNA may be identical.
Although there will still be significant hurdles in cloning a thylacine for real, researchers believe the new numbat genome map can now help them fill in some of the missing bits of the thylacine genome and make better-informed decisions about how to safeguard the living species.
The striped, termite-eating numbats are listed as decreasing on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, with fewer than 1,000 estimated to be remaining in the wild.
Kaur said the foremost of the conservation work is the breeding program to keep the genetic diversity, as the same genetic makeup among the population can lead to extinction when the species got super sick by the same disease.
"This is kind of the purpose we are trying to do, helping to get basic information of all these animals, such as numbat and the Tasmanian devil, so that we can have better breeding programs." ■