NEW ZEALAND (CU)_ The improvement of recent technology together with data analysis has helped many biotechnologists and other life scientist to give equal importance to data and new technologies, as they would to laboratory and the natural environment. An international team of researchers have shown optimism for a new DNA extraction technique which made thousands of shells in museums, available for research, which they hope will be followed by enhanced conservation and evaluation of previously unseen molluscs.
Molluscs are invertebrates with usually a fleshy body. The fascination with molluscs has historic significance with mollusc shells being as currencies in certain nations in the past.
The University of Otago’s Kerry Walton a PhD candidate of the Department of Zoology, stated that there were around 200,000 different mollusc species, which makes them the 2nd most diverse animal group. Mollusc shells are said to be capable of lasting in some environments for thousands of years. He further stated that of the many thousands of mollusc collections in museums of Aotearoa New Zealand, only a small percentage can be used with conventional genetic research techniques.
He further said “We managed to develop a combination of methods that improved the retrieval of DNA and sequencing of genomes from mollusc shell by up to 350-fold over previous methods, and we did so in a way that proved reliable and relatively affordable, without destroying the specimens,”
The study made use of a new method to analyze abalone shells of New Zealand. The findings gave better insights, how different regional species compare to each other. Abalone shells are usually found in the coastal areas of New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, North America, and Japan.
Walton further stated that the new method has the technology capable of using shells collected in the past as opposed to shells collected recently which can help them analyze genetic conditions impacted by human activities and even prior to human arrival.
