New Delhi: Scientists at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratory, have sequenced the genome of a fish, which, because of its similarity to the human genome, holds several clues to identifying genes that cause diseases in human beings.
Vinod Scaria, IGIB scientist, said that the wild zebrafish strain analysed, was a first of it’s kind genome analysis in India.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first time that a vertebrate’s whole genome has been analysed in an Indian lab,” said Scaria. Globally, scientists have studied zebrafish genomes before, but Scaria said these were mostly hybrids cloned in labs.
“Studying a wild type strain is vital to understand the complete genetic variation within a species. Without that it’s not possible to determine which genes are responsible for certain diseases,” he added.