Plant & Animal Genomes XIII Conference Plant & Animal Genomes XIII ConferenceJanuary 15-19, 2005
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Takakazu Kaneko , Shusei Sato , Yasukazu Nakamura , Erika Asamizu , Tomohiko Kato , Satoshi Tabata
Lotus japonicus has typical characteristics suitable to perform genetic studies on legume-specific life phenomena. Mutants in various steps of symbiosis with microbes have been isolated, and genes related to these processes have been characterized utilizing the established transformation system. With the aim of understanding the genetic system carried by leguminous plant, we have launched on a large-scale genome analysis of L. japonicus. The fruit of this project will facilitate the gene isolation responsible for the symbiotic process, and also serve as a standard for comparative genomics studies of leguminous species. Our project consists of three different parts: EST collection, genome sequencing and linkage mapping. The sequence information and cDNA clones for a total of 97455 ESTs (20457 non-redundant groups) have been made public. For the genome sequencing, 11 independent genomic libraries were constructed in TAC and BAC vectors (average insert size; 30-145 kb), of 20.4 haploid genome equivalent. All selected clones (1442 TAC and 196 BAC clones) have been sequenced by Sep. 2004. Gene-finding with a computer-aided modeling system, which combines similarity search outputs and prediction algorithms, is in progress. It revealed the average protein encoding gene density of the L. japonicus genome to be one gene in every 11 kb. We successfully mapped 1296 seed clones for sequencing by generating DNA markers such as SSR and dCAPS on the linkage map. We are going to report the current status of the L. japonicus genome project.