Azerbaijan National Academy of Science

Azerbaijan pomegranates historically were differed according to their quality and productivity, positioned on a rightful place on the world market and has become one of the country's national symbols. There is a rich genetic diversity of pomegranate in the country. Through the years, nearly 200 local varieties of pomegranate were created by the people and by scientific selection method.

ANAS Institute of Genetic Resources (IGR) is one of the leading institutions of academy for its important scientific results and innovative projects carried out. The main scientific directions of the institute is regeneration of cultural plants and their wild relatives, precious, rare and endangered species, production of new sorts and coordination of the activities of the institutions of the country in related fields.

Over the years IGR has collected seeds of over 7,000 cultivated plants and their wild relatives close to 400 species from various regions of Azerbaijan and registered. With the purchase of a new type wheat forms with branched spikes the role of remote hydridization in enrichment of genetic diversity has been proven experimentally. Bean western yellows virus, bean leafroll virus, chickpea chlorotic stunt virus, faba bean necrotic yellows virus, pea seed-borne mosaic viruses were identified and sequenced in cultivated and wild species of legume plants of Azerbaijan for the first time.

Recently IGR conducted extensive research work related to the genetic diversity of pomegranate. Thus, by support of ANAS leadership, important steps were taken in the field of collection, protection and assessment of pomegranate gene fund, domestic folk selection varieties and wild populations of distribution have been defined by the institute.

Large wild diversity of pomegranate is come across on the banks of Kura-Alazan, Ayrichay, on the southern slopes of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, Shirvan, Lankaran and other sub-tropical areas.

Nuclear DNA extraction with a high quality and density from guloysha variety of pomegranate was carried out in Azerbaijan for the first time.

During expeditions, pomegranate plant leaf samples were taken from the 85 varieties and 100 wild populations in the country, their genetic diversity has been studied through using molecular marker technology for the first time. Based on researches, was found out that pomegranate varieties and forms collected from different regions are suitable for selection programs as a valuable source and donor, then a paper about was developed for world scientific community. For the first time, work planning and methods of analysis over nuclear genome sequence of the pomegranate plant, its transcript analysis was discussed at the international centers.

Genotyping of pomegranate samples based on sequence through new generation sequencers established in IGR, including studies on their chloroplast genome was launched. To this end, the chloroplast DNA extraction was completed for Azerbaijan guloysha sort and a library prepared from a 200 nucleotide pairs.

Given the need to conduct a full analysis of the genome in parallel in multiple platforms, nuclear genome sequencing and transcript analysis of grenade carried out jointly with the international centers.

So, Department of Biotechnology of the Institute for the first time carried out the extraction of high quality and density of the nuclear DNA of varieties of Azerbaijani guloysha pomegranate and prepared libraries of different sizes. Currently, work is continuing on the reading of the genome in some platforms.

Scientific research is conducted in the framework of the program funded by ANAS "Identification of plant genetic resources at the level of the genome and the transcriptome, the creation of a sustainable system for their conservation and efficient use." These studies, along with the popularization of Azerbaijan's rich genetic resources contribute to the achievement of significant results in the field of plant breeding grenade.

©All rights are reserved. Citing to www.science.gov.az is necessary upon using news.