Plant & Animal Genomes XVI Conference

January 12-16, 2008
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

A Proposal For New Pine Genetic Resources For Mapping And Sequence Assembly

Craig S Echt¹ , Ross Whetten² , C Dana Nelson¹ , Daniel G Peterson³ , Konstantin V Krutovsky⁴ , Cetin Yuceer⁵ , Jeffrey FD Dean⁶

¹  Southern Institute of Forest Genetics, Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Saucier, Mississippi, 39574, USA

²  Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

³  Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, USA

⁴  Department of Ecosystem Science & Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

⁵  Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, USA

⁶  Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

Research in the coming decades will require new pine genetic resources that are both powerful and publicly owned and maintained. Assembly of a BAC-based physical map and a reference genome sequence for loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) are emerging needs that would benefit from a high-density, high-resolution genetic map. We propose using a haploid mapping population of 10,000 megagametophytes obtained from the cloned loblolly pine individual, 7-56, from which BAC libraries have been made. Thousands of public reference markers could be efficiently mapped with a hierarchical mapping strategy using genome amplified samples. Accurate and efficient sub-centimorgan ordering of additional sequence features could then be achieved in targeted locations using a selective mapping strategy. Further, studies of the genetic control of phenotypic variation and fine mapping of genes onto a reference map are emerging needs that would benefit from a large, structured, multi-parent population. We propose a population made from a topcross between tree 7-56 and eight other parents, plus partial diallel crosses among those eight parents. Parental provenances would represent diverse geographic areas. Population sets would consist of 1152 progeny evenly distributed among the 24 full-sib families. Sets of seedlings established on public lands in different ecological regions of the southern U.S. could allow collection of phenotypic data by all interested researchers. Seed would be available to researchers wishing to establish additional population sets. A composite map of public reference markers would be constructed for use in genetic analysis of phenotypes and for mapping of additional markers and candidate genes.