Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Utilization And Characterization Of A Chenopodium quinoa BAC Library For A Better Understanding Of Its Genome And Physical Mapping

Nicholas S. Parkinson , Craig E. Coleman , P. Jeff Maughan , Eric N. Jellen , Daniel J. Fairbanks , Greg J. Cox , Marie Balzotti , Melinda P. Brown , Mikel R. Stevens

  Plant and Animal Science Dept 288 WIDB Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 USA

Chenopodium quinoa is a pseudo cereal plant that meets or exceeds FAO minimum daily protein recommendations for a healthy diet. This unique crop is indigenous to one of the most impoverished regions of South America, the Altiplano of Bolivia and Peru. We are now using various economical methods of analyzing our quinoa BAC library (9X coverage) to enhance understanding of its genome. Arizona Genomics Institute sequenced 1920 BAC-ends and recovered ~2500 high-quality sequences with a PHRED score =16 and an average size of 250 bp. The sequences have been compared using BLAST against the nucleotide and protein databases. The BLAST results are being scrutinized for genes, retroelements, and other genomic characteristics. Searching the BAC-end sequences we identified 20 SSRs and designed PCR based primers. Additionally, the sequences are being searched for SNPs for the development of anchoring specific BACs to the physical and genetic mapping projects already underway. The SNPs are being identified by comparing sequences found from the BAC-end sequencing project to their homologous sequences from the parents of our quinoa mapping populations. Futhermore, these PCR based markers will allow for the identification of BAC contigs and aid in their assembly. To increase the utility of this library in PCR based clone searches a pooling of the library is underway. The value of this library has already been demonstrated in its use to clone several genes.