Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference

Poster: Sequencing & EST
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LARGE SCALE STRUCTURAL ANALYSES OF cDNAS IN MODEL PLANTS

¹ Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kisarazu, Chiba 292-0812, Japan

² Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan

³ Center for Advanced Technology, Tokai University, Shimizu, Shizuoka 424-8610, Japan

Genome analysis of plants is preceded in Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa, the model organisms for dicot and monocot plants, respectively. Using the sequence and structure information obtained from the genome sequencing projects and taking the genome-wide functional analysis approach will lead to the understanding of fundamental biological systems in plants. However, the diversity seen among many other plant species is hardly fully explained only by these two model plants. We have started large-scale cDNA analyses for several unique plants. By comparing the genetic information carried in these plants and A. thaliana, it is possible to identify the gene repertoires and regulatory systems specific to the plant species. Lotus japonicus (a legume), Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (a unicellular green alga) and Porphyra yezoensis (a multicellular red alga) are chosen as materials and ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags) have been accumulated. As of Oct. 2000, 12,028, 12,556, 10,101 and 4,216 non-redundant EST groups were obtained from A. thaliana, L. japonicus, C. reinhardtii and P. yezoensis, respectively. Sequence comparison is being performed to identify the orthologous genes among the four plant species, and the result will be presented.