Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Workshop: Edible Legumes
            

COMPARATIVE GENETICS OF PEA (Pisum sativum)

¹ John Innes Centre, Colney Lane, Norwich, NR4 7UH, England , UK

² Department of Biochemistry,University of Dundee,MSI/WTB Complex, Dow Street, Dundee, DD1 5EH, Scotland, UK

³ Institute of Genetics, Biological Research Center of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Molecular marker maps that have been generated for pea (Pisum sativum), can be integrated with each other and with previous genetic and cytogenetic maps. These data sets will be brought together to summarise the current state of knowledge, exploiting the common genetic markers used in many different studies. The pea linkage map was known to be simply related to the maps of lentil and chickpea, and these relationships together with the more distantly related alfalfa genetic map will be presented in the context of the present map. The genomes of these legumes appear to have an equivalent gene content, and similar gene order, but differ in their repetitive DNA content. The major trend in genome evolution in this legume group appears to be the accumulation of retrotransposons. The implications of these observations for the genetics of the Galegoid legumes will be discussed.