A work presenting the first steps to decode the genome of the cockle Cerastoderma edule earned a team of specialists from the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo the award for best panel at the 20th edition of the Galician Estuary Marine Resources and Aquaculture Forum, Foro Acui, held this month on the island of A Toxa in the province of Vigo and in which the main research, business, administrative and student groups linked to the fishing and aquaculture sector participated to analyze, debate and reflect on marine resources and aquaculture, as well as to contribute to the transfer of knowledge.
The award was collected by researcher Alicia L. Bruzos, a doctoral student and one of the authors of this research, a work she signed jointly with fellow researchers Seila Díaz, Daniel García-Souto and José Tubío, researcher from the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Immunology and winner of one of the prestigious Starting Grants from the European Research Council with a study on transmissible cancers in bivalves, Scuba Cancers, under which different research works are being carried out, including the one awarded at the ForoAcui.
The award-winning research, in addition to taking the first steps to decode the genome of this type of cockle, estimates that the size of this species is 1.5 Gb, “approximately half the size of the human genome”, explains the researcher, while emphasizing that this analysis of the genome with the preliminary sequencing results of a cockle are the starting point for obtaining the reference genome of this species, “which will be an important tool to achieve the objectives of the Scuba Cancers project”.
Under the European project Scuba Cancers
The European Scuba Cancers project, funded with one and a half million euros by the ERC Starting Grant awarded to Tubío in 2016, has as its main objective to identify the genetic alterations and mutational processes of the transmissible cancers that cockles present. Having a reference genome for the cockle constitutes a cornerstone for this project and, in this sense, the team responsible for the research emphasizes that the assembly and annotation of this genome is complex due to the repetitive regions it presents. These difficulties justified the creation, a year ago, of the International Common Cockle Genome Consortium (ICCGC) with the aim of having experts in genomics of international relevance participate in the annotation of the reference genome.
“In addition to the ICCGC consortium and the facilities of the Marine Science and Research Station of the University of Vigo (Ecimat) where the samples are processed, the collaborations with the Marine Research Center (CIMA) of the Xunta de Galicia and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge (UK) were of great help,” explained Bruzos.
