Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

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

Rice Genome Resources As The Core For Implementation Of A Robust Functional Genomics Platform

Baltazar A. Antonio , Akio Miyao , Yoshiaki Nagamura , Takuji Sasaki

  National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, 2-1-2 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8602, Japan

With the completion of the rice genome sequence, the next objective in rice genomics is to elucidate the biology of the rice plant at the cellular, organismal and evolutionary level. The complete sequence of the rice genome in the public domain now provides researchers unlimited access to the sequence of 37,544 predicted genes that define the rice plant. This must be supplemented with an expanded genetic toolkit that includes biological materials which could be used for experimental verification of gene function, viable strategies to execute large-scale characterization of the genome and an informatics infrastracture to facilitate integration of all knowledge about the rice plant. Current efforts of the Rice Genome Resource Center ( http://www.rgrc.dna.affrc.go.jp) in providing the research community with biological materials including full-length cDNA clones, mutant lines and genetic populations will be described. In addition, an overview of the collaborative efforts of the international community in the implementation of a robust platform to facilitate coordinated research in functional and applied genomics will be presented with emphasis on how this initiative has been making a significant impact in improving rice and understanding other cereal genomes.