Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

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

Development Of Genomic Tools In Melon (Cucumis Melo L.) For The Analysis Of Resistance To Pathogens And Fruit Quality Traits: Melogen

Jordi Garcia-MAS¹ , Miguel Aranda² , Pere Arús¹ , José Blanca³ , Wim Deleu¹ , Daniel González² , Mireia González-To¹ , Víctor González⁴ , Antonio Monforte¹ , Fernando Nuez³ , Belén Picó³ , Antonio Robles⁵ , Cristina Roig³ , Pere Puigdomènech⁴

¹  Laboratori de Genètica Molecular Vegetal CSIC-IRTA, Departament de Genética Vegetal, carretera de Cabrils s/n, 08348 Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain

²  CEBAS-CSIC, Departamento de Mejora y Patología Vegetal, Apdo. correos 164, 30100 Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

³  COMAV-UPV, Departamento de Biotecnología, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain

⁴  Laboratori de Genètica Molecular Vegetal CSIC-IRTA, Departament de Genética Molecular, Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain

⁵  UPV, Departamento de Informática de Sistemas y Computadores, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is an important cucurbit crop worldwide and Spain is the 5th world producer. In 2004 the Spanish Initiative in Genomics and Proteomics funded the project “Development of genomic tools in melon (C. melo L.) for the analysis of resistance to pathogens and fruit quality traits”, a collaborative effort involving five different research groups. After one year some of the project objectives have already been achieved: 1) Sequencing of 24.000 melon ESTs produced from eight cDNA libraries from fruits and leaves and roots under biotic stress, yielding 14.000 unigenes. 2) Creating a webpage (www.melogen.upv.es) and a database which integrates the EST and genetc map information. 3) Increasing the melon genetic map resolution with the development of 50 new EST-derived SNP markers. 4) Starting of the melon physical map by anchoring BAC clones with 150 RFLP markers of the genetic map. 5) Developing an EMS-mutagenised melon population of 3.000 M2 families for TILLING. Other long-term objectives of the project are the development of BAC contigs of about 1 Mb in some selected regions of the melon genome and the construction of a microarray that will contain the EST unigene set. A detailed overview of the project will be presented.