Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Poster: Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oat, and related
            

CONSTRUCTION OF AN HEXAPLOID WHEAT BAC LIBRARY FOR STUDYING GENOME ORGANIZATION AND CLONING OF INTERESTING GENES AND QTLs.

¹ Unité de Recherches en Génomique Végétale (URGV-INRA), 2, rue Gaston Crémieux , CP 5708 , 91057 Évry cedex, France

The hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L) has a very large genome (16000 Mb) that is 127 times that of the plant model A. thaliana. Three years ago, GENOPLANTE (a plant genome consortium) has been setted up in France for developing genome projects on important crops. One of the main challenges is the construction of a BAC library representative of the huge genome of hexaploid wheat. A BAC library of 1 000 320 clones has now been constructed (Genoplante project) using the cultivar 'Renan'. This library represents the largest BAC library constructed to date. Insert size ranges from 70 to 250 Kb with an average of 140 Kb (7 genome-equivalent). Strategies and methods that have been developed for 'rapid' construction of this library as well as its characteristics will be presented. We are now focusing on developing original methods and approaches for an intelligent exploitation of this resource. Wheat genome organization programs as well as cloning of important genes and QTLs will be facilitated by access to this library and the information gained from studying it.