Plant & Animal Genome V Conference
Town & Country Hotel, San Diego, CA, January 12-16, 1997.
PAG-V: S16 - TOWARD A UNIFIED GENETIC MAP OF HIGHER PLANTS, TRANSCENDING THE MONOCOT-DICOT DIVERGENCE
S16
TOWARD A UNIFIED GENETIC MAP OF HIGHER PLANTS, TRANSCENDING THE MONOCOT-DICOT DIVERGENCE
PATERSON, ANDREW H.(1), Tien-hung Lan(1), Kim P. Reischmann(1), Charlene Chang(1), Yann-rong Lin(1), Sin-chieh Liu(1), Mark D. Burow(1), Stanley P. Kowalski(1), Catherine S. Katsar(1), Terrye A Delmonte(1), Kenneth A. Feldmann(2), Keith F. Schertz(3), Jonathan F. Wendel(4)
1. Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, Dept Soil and Crop Science, Texas A&M University
2. Dept Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ
3. USDA-ARS, Sorghum Genetics Program, College Station TX
4. Dept Botany, Iowa State University, Ames IA
Genome mapping in recent years has shown co-linearity among the chromosomes of many genera in common families. Using these data, we estimated an average rate of structural mutation for chromosomes, which suggested that it might be possible to discern regions of co-linear gene order in taxa which diverged from a common ancestor in the Cretaceous, or earlier. This prediction was tested by genetic mapping of common Arabidopsis cDNAs in representatives of the flowering plant subclasses Monocotyledonae (monocots: Sorghum spp.) and Dicotyledonae (dicots: Arabidopsis thaliana, Brassica oleracea, Gossypium spp.). Monocots and dicots diverged about 130-200 million years ago, and include most agricultural crops and botanical models. Most chromosomal segments of <3 cM showed co-linear gene order, suggesting that a unified monocot/dicot map might require as few as 500 corresponding loci. A unified genetic map would expedite the application of mutants and complete genomic DNA sequences from facile models such as Arabidopsis to the cloning of agriculturally-important genes from major crops, and better elucidate evolutionary events such as polyploid formation and chromosomal rearrangement.