Rice Farming

Scientists who are decoding chromosome 10 of the rice genome have discovered that it has 3,471 genes--twice as many as expected--and it is nearly identical to other grains, particularly sorghum and corn. The advance, reported in the June 6 issue of Science, will assist in improving a crop that has been cultivated for more than 9,000 years and consumed by more than half the world's population.

"The nice thing about rice is that it has a very compact genome," says Rod Wing, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson and director of the Arizona Genomics Institute.

"Rice has 12 chromosomes and is considered a model plant for research in cereals. By decoding the rice genome we'll understand the regulatory networks involved in disease tolerance, drought tolerance and other mechanisms that will help in the breeding of rice varieties that are higher yielding, more stress tolerant and more environmentally friendly." The project is led by Wing, C. Robin Buell of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md., and W. Richard McCombie of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Funding for the project came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy.

A portion of chromosome 10 was also sequenced by the Plant Genome Initiative at Rutgers University.
The researchers are part of a 10-nation consortium decoding the entire rice genome. Wing and his team were responsible for the entire sequence and analysis of chromosome 10 and a draft sequence of the "short arm" of chromosome 3.

The consortium published a draft sequence of the complete rice genome in Science last December that included a more conservative estimate of the number of genes in chromosome 10, the smallest in the genome.

Going from the draft to the finished version has been painstakingly precise and costly, says Buell, because the process requires considerable lab work by an extended team of research associates. There are no short cuts. The resulting view, however, is immensely clearer--"like looking at the cosmos through a regular telescope, and then looking at it through the Hubble telescope," he says.

So far, other members of the international consortium have completed the sequencing for rice chromosomes 1 and 4. A full sequence for chromosome 3 is expected to be announced by the end of 2004. Once the entire rice genome is sequenced, scientists say they can use it as a model for estimating gene order in the much larger genomes of maize, barley and wheat.

Arizona researcher decodes key rice chromosome

Scientists who are decoding chromosome 10 of the rice genome have discovered that it has 3,471 genes--twice as many as expected--and it is nearly identical to other grains, particularly sorghum and corn. The advance, reported in the June 6 issue of Science, will assist in improving a crop that has been cultivated for more than 9,000 years and consumed by more than half the world's population. "The nice thing about rice is that it has a very compact genome," says Rod Wing, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson and director of the Arizona Genomics Institute. "Rice has 12 chromosomes and is considered a model plant for research in cereals. By decoding the rice genome we'll understand the regulatory networks involved in disease tolerance, drought tolerance and other mechanisms that will help in the breeding of rice varieties that are higher yielding, more stress tolerant and more environmentally friendly." The project is led by Wing, C. Robin Buell of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md., and W. Richard McCombie of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Funding for the project came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. A portion of chromosome 10 was also sequenced by the Plant Genome Initiative at Rutgers University. The researchers are part of a 10-nation consortium decoding the entire rice genome. Wing and his team were responsible for the entire sequence and analysis of chromosome 10 and a draft sequence of the "short arm" of chromosome 3. The consortium published a draft sequence of the complete rice genome in Science last December that included a more conservative estimate of the number of genes in chromosome 10, the smallest in the genome. Going from the draft to the finished version has been painstakingly precise and costly, says Buell, because the process requires considerable lab work by an extended team of research associates. There are no short cuts. The resulting view, however, is immensely clearer--"like looking at the cosmos through a regular telescope, and then looking at it through the Hubble telescope," he says. So far, other members of the international consortium have completed the sequencing for rice chromosomes 1 and 4. A full sequence for chromosome 3 is expected to be announced by the end of 2004. Once the entire rice genome is sequenced, scientists say they can use it as a model for estimating gene order in the much larger genomes of maize, barley and wheat.
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