During the first phase of the project, Sub Distributed Center in Bioinformatics (SUB-DIC) was established in the university with the funding from DBT under BTIS Network. The Sub Distributed Center was established with an aim to promote application of Bioinformatics tools for agriculture. During the first phases of the project we have established basic infrastructure for undertaking bioinformatics analysis. In the School of Agricultural Biotechnology, we are operating a number of research projects on the application of molecular biology tools for transfer and mapping of novel genes from wild species for crop improvement. The students and research fellows employed in these projects are now routinely using genome sequence and EST databases for mapping and following their genes of interest. Within last 3-4 years we have been successful in familiarizing the scientists and students with the potential of Bioinformatics. We have also been sanctioned a project on Wheat genome Sequencing by DBT. Under this project we are establishing a super computing facility which will be instrumental in the wheat genome sequence analysis. In addition we are involved in human resource development through conduct of trainings and teaching Bioinformatics courses. The progress made in the first two phases of the project is as under
We have a number of projects on application of Molecular Biology for identification, introgression, and mapping of new genes for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, quality and productivity traits from wild species of wheat and rice. We are utilizing various bioinformatics tools for designing primers for fine mapping of these genes followed by map based cloning. Some of the selected applications of Bioinformatics are presented here
For wheat, India is a participant in International Wheat genome sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) with the responsibility of generating of physical map and sequencing of chromosome 2A which has a size of ~900Mbp and is more than twice the whole rice genome. PAU is the coordinating centre and has the responsibility for generating physical map and sequencing of long arm of chromosome 2A. A mega project Physical Mapping and Sample Sequencing of Wheat Chromosome 2A- International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (India) has been sanctioned by DBT with School of Agricultural Biotechnology as the coordinating centre. Advanced biocomputing facilities are being set up under this project. Bacterial artificial chromosome library consisting of 76,000 BAC clones have been procured and will be used for SNAPshot fingerprinting and BAC end sequencing. Using next generation sequencing technology, 300x and 98x sequencing data for short and long arm of 2A, respectively has been generated. Preliminary assembly has been developed and the sequencing data is being used for Gene annotations.