Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

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

Poster: Forest Trees
            

COMPARATIVE MAPPING ACROSS DIFFERENT CONIFER GENERA: MYTH OR REALITY? DOUGLAS-FIR - LOBLOLLY PINE CASE

¹ Institute of Forest Genetics, Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Environmental Horticulture Department, University of California at Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

² Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Universita' di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 11/A, 43100 Parma, Italy

³ Environmental Horticulture Department, University of California at Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

⁴ Institute of Forest Genetics, Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, 2480 Carson Road, Placerville, CA 95667, USA

⁵ Department of Biotechnology and Breeding, Center of Forest Research (CIFOR-INIA), Apdo. 8111, 28080 Madrid, Spain

Conifer genomes are very large compared to most other plant species and unlikely to be completely sequenced in the near future. Therefore comparative genomics and comparative mapping will play a central role in many areas of conifer genome research. Comparative mapping requires orthologous polymorphic markers that can be studied across different species. Expressed sequence tag polymorphisms (ESTPs) are the good candidates for such markers. They represent functional genes and can be developed relatively easily from already available cDNA/EST libraries and large gene discovery projects. Comparative mapping helps to (1) produce consensus genetic maps within and between species, (2) verify quantitative trait loci (QTLs), (3) identify candidate genes for quantitative and complex traits and (4) understand the evolution of the conifer genome. We tested about 200 ESTP markers previously developed in several conifer species and used shared markers for comparative genome mapping in loblolly pine, Norway spruce and Douglas-fir. We also used homology search among DNA sequences deposited in the Genbank databases and 5,000 ESTs newly developed in Douglas-fir to find orthologous genes suitable for comparative mapping. This study is part of the Conifer Comparative Genomics Project (CCGP) formed as an international collaboration at the Institute of Forest Genetics (USDA Forest Service) to develop orthologous genetic markers, publicly available reference mapping populations that can be shared among different laboratories, and the bioinformatic tools to facilitate comparative mapping.