PAG-II Plant Genome II Conference

Town & Country Conference Center, San Diego, CA, January, 1994.


PG-II: MAPPING THE MAIZE GENOME WITH YACs

MAPPING THE MAIZE GENOME WITH YACs

Keith Edwards, Heather Rawles, Allan Daly and Keith Rufener, Plant Biotechnology Section, Zeneca Seeds, Jealott's Hill Research Station, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK RG12 6EY.


We have constructed a maize YAC library containing 79,000 clones with an average insert size of 145 kb. Using both a PCR screening protocol and robot aided high density colony hybridisation we have begun to isolate and characterise numerous sequences from throughout the genome. Our preliminary studies have shown that YAC's prepared from maize genomic DNA are difficult to characterize due to the presence of large numbers of repeat sequences. Although these repeats can interfere with both the mapping of individual YAC's and chromosome walking we have shown that it is possible to use maize YAC's to physically link markers which can be separated on the genetic map. We are now using repeat sequences to catalog individual YAC's with respect to the Organisation of the different repeats within the genome. We believe that these studies will eventually lead to a better understanding of the role which repeats play in the organisation and evolution of a complex plant genome.


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