Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

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

Progress In Dissecting The Physical Organization Of The Sugarcane Genome.

John E. Bowers , Gary Pierce , Lifeng Lin , Cornelia Lemke , Andrew H Paterson

  Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, Univ. Georgia, Athens GA USA

The pending sequencing of the sorghum genome, slated for 2006, opens new doors into resolving the complex genetics and genomics of sugarcane, a complex interspecific autopolyploid hybrid. An extensive resource of locus-specific hybridization data comprised of nearly 100,000 anchor points and freely available online, provides an initial framework for physical mapping of sorghum, and based on comparative studies appears likely to identify most of the gene-rich euchromatin in sugarcane. Detailed characterization of two genomic regions, exploiting rice and sorghum synteny, is in progress to explore the possibility of assembling a meaningful tiling path of sugarcane BAC clones that is representative of the basic (n=8-10) chromosome set.