Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

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

Session: Plenary Speaker
            

DEVELOPING RICE AS A CEREAL GENOMICS MODEL

¹ Torrey Mesa Research Institute, 3115 Merryfield Row, San Diego, CA 92121, U.S.A.

The genome of rice was sequenced to over 6-fold coverage by a draft sequencing approach and assembled. The accumulated sequence represents more than 99% of the rice genome, and contains over 99% of the publicly available full-length rice protein sequences. Over 42,000 genes or gene fragments longer than 500 base pairs and 63,000 genes or gene fragments longer than 300 base pairs were predicted using an integrated gene prediction, sequence homology, and protein domain/motif identification strategy. More than 85% of the predicted Arabidopsis genes display significant homology to genes predicted in rice, and approximately one-third appear to be plant-specific. Greater than 98% of the publicly available proteins of maize, wheat, and barley were found with significant homology in the draft sequence assembly and more than 95% of translated cDNAs were found in the rice draft gene predictions. Approximately 40,000 simple-sequence repeats (microsatellites) were identified in the draft genome sequence. Synteny between the rice genome and other cereal genomes was found to be significant, whereas synteny between rice and Arabidopsis is restricted to short regions of the genome carrying 5 to 15% of the genes. No evidence for lateral DNA transfer was found in a comparative analysis of the rice and human genomes. Details of the sequencing and analysis will be presented.