Plant & Animal Genome VI Conference

C12

GENOMEC: A SOFTWARE TOOL TO ASSESS GENOME COVERAGE AND MAPPING PROSPECTS

The Graduate School of Experimental Sciences, Departments of Phytopathology, Nematology and Plant Breeding. P.O. Box 8123, 6700 ES Wageningen, The Netherlands

As the construction of dense genetic linkage maps has become methodical, there is a need to assess the value of additional markers to the map. Current methods which aim to predict the number of markers necessary to generate sufficiently saturated maps ignore the clustering of markers encountered in most linkage maps and the specific characteristics of a mapping population. The computer program GENOMEC was designed for tailor made calculation of mapping efficiency. GENOMEC simulates the map construction process by providing a cumulative genome coverage relative to the number of markers analysed. The slope of the curve obtained is indicative for the value of new markers added to the genetic map. GENOMEC is a one pass interpreter of output files of the mapping program JOINMAP (Stam, Plant J. 1993. 3:739-744). The program is MS-DOS compatible and will be available on the Internet at http://www.pckassa.com/genomec.