Plant & Animal Genomes XVI Conference

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

Comparative Genomics Of Brachypodium, Rice And Wheat

Michael Bevan¹ , John Wright¹ , Neil Mckenzie¹ , Martin Trick¹ , Mingcheng Luo² , Yong Gu³ , Todd Mockler⁴ , John Vogel³ , John Snape¹ , David Garvin⁵

¹  John Innes Centre, Colney Lane, Norwich NR4 7UJ, UK

²  Dept Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

³  USDA-ARS Western Regional Research Center, 800 Buchanan St, Albany, CA 94710, USA

⁴  Dept Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-2902, USA

⁵  USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit and Dept of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Upper Buford Circle, St Paul, MN 55108, USA

There is extensive evidence, based on genetic mapping data, that gene order may be highly conserved in the grass family. Small scale sequencing of related regions of many grass genomes has indeed shown that in general gene order is conserved, but there are many exceptions, even in closely related species. Larger scale analysis is required to relate chromosome- and genome- wide relationships among the grasses. Until now this has not been feasible because only one grass genome, rice, had been sequenced. Recently the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) has completed a 4x sequence coverage of the Brachypodium distachyon genome. Brachypodium, a wild grass, is a promising new model organism for research in temperate grasses. It has a relatively small diploid genome and rapid life cycle, it is quite closely related to wheat and barley, and has extensive natural variation that can be tapped for biological and agronomic traits. We are learning about genome dynamics in the grasses by conducting sequence level comparison between the rice and Brachypodium genomes, and between Brachypodium and wheat using COS markers and EST sequences. Our presentation will discuss progress and indicate how the Brachypodium genome could be used to help assemble and interpret the wheat genome.