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Rubber Tree Breakthrough
Nearly half the world rubber market is made up of natural rubber, almost 10 million tons, and the demand for rubber is growing. At the same time the rubber plant is facing increasing threats from disease and climate change. It’s why the recent sequencing of the Rubber genome is an important step forward. It was the result of a collaboration between the Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre (TARRC) based near Hertford and The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), in Norwich.
Tarrc grew out of the fact that long ago the UK had rubber plantations in Malaysia, and set up research centres in the UK and Malaysia – TARRC is now the research centre in the UK for the Malaysian Rubber Board. Assembling and annotating the rubber genome is important, as Stuart Cook Tarrc’s Director of Research explains, ‘about 70 percent of natural rubber is used in tyres. Every time you fly anywhere, the aircraft tyre is predominantly made of natural rubber.’ The reason is that while synthetic polymers are useful, natural rubber is more resilient, durable and tough. ‘In a highly demanding product like a tyre, strength is important,’ explains Cook, ‘and larger tyres such as those for aircraft and trucks have an even larger proportion of rubber than car tyres.’ Tarrc’s Ewan Mollison, who worked on the sequencing, says that the size of the rubber genome (about two-thirds of the size of the human genome) made it a challenge. ‘And because the sequencing is so repetitive,’ says Mollison, it was like assembling a jigsaw where 50 percent is sea and sky and there’s no reference picture to work from.’
Natural Rubber © Anatoli Styf - iStockphoto
The discovery of the genome means that they can explore the development of more robust rubber plants. As Maria Kolesnikova-Allen, Head of TARRC's Biotechnology Unit explains, the breeding process for a traditional rubber tree is extremely lengthy, ‘the genome information will allow us to identify a large number of molecular markers, and link with genes controlling certain traits.’ They include traits for latex-quality rubber, or traits that can play in climate change, like drought and high winds and flooding in certain areas. And they may be able to develop trees resistant to diseases in Latin American rubber trees.
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