University Sains Malaysia unveils plant genome of billion dollar global industry

Malaysia Penang: The Centre for Chemical Biology at the University SainsMalaysia (CCB@USM) has decoded the first-ever draft of the approximately 2billion base of genome of the Rubber Tree Hevea brasiliens is using its seamless chemical biology discovery platform. The announcement was made by the Malaysian Minister of Higher Education, Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordinin a press conference.
This genome project is the result of an international collaboration led by CCB@USM. The researchers applied three Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) techniques to generate over 60 billion bases of raw data. To validate the assembly and annotation, decoded genes were then used to map out the rubber biosynthetic pathways whose end-products are used world-wide to support a multi-billion dollar global industry. The genomic data will aid in the development of genetic markers required in rubber tree breeding. Breeding by utilizing genomic data allow faster development of rubber trees with favourable traits such as disease resistance to South American Leaf Blight and white root disease. It can also be used to improve the properties of rubberwood and further enable the rubber tree to be used in medical research. Currently 10 plant genomes have been or are being sequenced. These plants include rice, Populus trichorpa (poplar tree), oat, soybean, maize, tomato, barley, wheat, cassava, sorghum, potato, sugarcane and most recently, the oil palm. Rubber is a very important commercial crop, second only to oil palm in Malaysia. Rubber represents 23% of cultivated crops in terms of acreage, covering over 1.4 million hectares. Annual production is about a million tonnes making Malaysia the world’s fourth biggest producer, after Indonesia, Thailand and India. In 2006, the export earnings of the rubber industry, including heveawood products was RM24.3 billion, accounting for 4.2 % of national exports earning. As a commodity product, natural rubber has many qualities that are superior to synthetic rubber. Over a period of 10 years the consumption of natural rubber has increased by 48% from 6.6 to 9.7million tonnes.
Year on year increase in consumption over the last 5 years has seen the figures surging from 4 to 6 %. The trend suggests that natural rubber consumption is on a steady rise. University Sains Malaysia is Malaysia’s first APEX University. This monumental achievement under CCB@USM’s seamless chemical biology discovery platform is part of USM’s overall scheme of “Transforming Higher Education for a Sustainable Tomorrow”.
Through the discovery of novel scientific knowledge and safeguarding intellectual property rights provides significant social and economic benefits to the people of Malaysia including those at the bottom of the global pyramid. It is important to emphasize that thisCCB@USM discovery platform is a critical component of USM’s overall intellectual infrastructure aimed at nurturing and enhancing Malaysia’s future economic stability through “holistic and sustainable development” and the concept of “1 Malaysia, Together We Prosper.”.