BROOKLIN, Canada, Sep 14 (IPS) - Scientists are enthusiastic about a new DNA barcoding technology that will help keep illegal fish and timber out of global markets, slow the spread of invasive pests, and improve food safety and disease prevention and offer better environmental monitoring.
U.S. government regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are beginning to utilise the three-year-old technology. "It's now a proven technology, everyone wants to use it," said David Schindel, executive secretary of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, comprised of 160 scientific and regulatory organisations from 50 countries and based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "It's also an incredibly important technology for developing countries to research and protect their biodversity," Schindel told IPS.
DNA barcoding is a fast, low-cost tool to identify plant and animal species developed in 2003 by Paul Herbert of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at Canada's University of Guelph. DNA is found in all living things, and is a complex molecule that contains all the genetic instructions for an organism to develop. Not surprisingly, the DNA of a human is different and more complex than that of a worm -- although mouse DNA is similar to human DNA. The genetic differences within the millions of pieces that make up DNA among animal species were very hard to find. Herbert's breakthrough was the discovery of a portion of a gene that is unique to each animal species -- its "DNA barcode".
This week, 350 DNA experts from 46 nations are meeting in Taipei with health officials, government agencies and others to get a better understanding of how to use this new technology to improve consumer protection and food safety, prevent disease, monitor changes in the environment, and more. Barcoding the world's several thousand species of mosquitoes is expected to become a priority since they are responsible for 500 million human malarial infections and a million deaths each year.
Mosquitoes also transmit many other devastating diseases, like West Nile virus and dengue, as well as parasites. "Key to disease management is vector control," said scientist Yvonne-Marie Linton of London's Natural History Museum, and leader of the Mosquito Barcoding Initiative (MBI). Until now, control efforts have been consistently undermined by species misidentification.
DNA barcoding can tremendously assist the world's expert mosquito taxonomists struggling to keep up with new species discoveries, she added. Researchers elsewhere worldwide are focused on barcoding other biting insects -- blood-sucking pests to birds, people and other mammals alike -- causing diseases, stress and allergic reactions. Another priority is fungi. Ecologically important for life on Earth, some 90-99 percent of fungi remain undocumented. Identifying both disease-producing and medically-useful fungi is important.
Previous meetings in Africa have identified other priorities such as barcoding insect pests that affect crops, fish species and insect pollinators, said Schindel. Networks are being established so that a biologist in Cameroon can take a sample, extract the DNA and send it to a lab there or elsewhere in Africa, where the sample's genes can be sequenced. That gene sequence is then compared with others in Genbank, a massive online database containing nearly 300,000 gene sequences. "If there is no match, then it might be a previously unidentified species, but the sequence will reveal related species," Schindel explained.
There is no cost to access these databanks, and the Consortium is committed to keeping the databases free and open to all, he said. Barcoding is also playing an important role in protecting biodiversity, the complex web of plants and animals that keeps ecosystems healthy. It's impossible to protect countries' biodiversity without knowing what's there, Schindel noted. Moorea, an island in French Polynesia, has become a laboratory for a French-U.S. collaboration that is building a barcode library for all terrestrial and marine species.
In South America, scientists and regulators want to use the technology to identify fish species to better monitor fish stocks and quotas and prevent sales of threatened or endangered species. Equally urgent for countries like Brazil is the ability to quickly identify the species of hardwood tree that a piece of lumber is made from. "When a tree has been turned into a pile of lumber it's very hard to know what species it was," Schindel said.
In the United States, the FDA has already barcoded 100 commercial fish species, following several fatal cases of toxic puffer fish sold as monk fish. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to use barcoding to better regulate commercial fish catches and do research on what fish are eating by analysing the contents of their guts. DNA barcoding also allows for fast identification of invasive species, says Scott Miller, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution.
"Invasive species can now come from anywhere in the world because of global transport systems," Miller told IPS. Preventing the spread of invasives is best done early before they become widely established, and the key to early action is identification. "That identification is vital in a region like the Galapagos Islands with so many endemic species easily disrupted by invasives," Miller said.
In 10 years' time or less, Galapagos port officials and inspectors will have a wireless DNA barcoder on their belts to identify species on the spot, he hopes. "Barcoding is expanding our knowledge of nature and is simultaneously providing tangible, specific and significant benefits to society," concluded Schindel.
