The report, which appears in the June 6 issue of the journal Science, follows in the footsteps of draft rice genome sequences announced in 2002 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Swiss-based agribusiness company Syngenta. The paper in Science addressed one of the rice chromosomes, and the team continues its work in the pursuit of full sequences of all the remaining chromosomes.
"The sequence we have produced is really anchored to the genetic map, giving us both the linear order of the genes and their position on the chromosome," said Joachim Messing, director of the Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology and an author of the paper. "The positional information fleshes out the earlier draft sequences that discovered only half of the genes on chromosome 10. This moves us closer to our ultimate goal of improving a crop that feeds much of the world," he said.
Rutgers participation in this research project, as well as some preceding it, was funded through Reinvest in Rutgers - a comprehensive program that helps build academic and research programs identified in the university's strategic plan. "If the state of New Jersey hadn't invested money in the Research in Rutgers program, we could not have contributed to this important genomic work on rice," Messing said. By supplying matching funds, Reinvest in Rutgers also helped Waksman scientists win a $4.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant in support of maize genome research.
Rutgers' consortium partners received their rice genome funding from NSF, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. The consortium includes scientists from Rutgers, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, University of Arizona, Washington University and The Institute for Genomic Research.
Messing said that the consortium's methodology - combining position mapping and sequence determination - is emphasized in the research paper, in part, because NSF and the other funding agencies are at a critical juncture in deciding which genomic approaches to support in the future. "Funding decisions based on our approach could bring us the support we need to keep our research going and growing," he said.
The paper concludes by framing the earlier draft sequences as "a useful first look at the rice genome, (but) the finished sequence yields more complete and accurate information essential to our understanding of plant biology."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Professor Messing may be contacted at (732) 445-4257 or by e-mail at messing@mbcl.rutgers.edu.
Journal
Science