Ithaca, New York
February 1, 2007
An international project led by
Cornell University and the
Boyce Thompson
Institute for Plant Research (BTI) at Cornell has received
$1.8 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to
continue sequencing the tomato genome and to create a database
of genomic sequences and information on the tomato and related
plants.
The grant for the International
Tomato Sequencing Project, a collaboration of researchers from
nine other countries, will enable U.S. researchers to continue
their work. In 2004 the NSF provided $4 million for the U.S.
part of the research.
Sequencing the tomato genome is the first step in creating the
comprehensive International Solanaceae Genomics Project (SOL)
Genomics Network database. This will tie together maps and
genomes of all plants in the Solanaceae family, also called
nightshades, which includes the potato, eggplant, pepper and
petunia and is closely related to coffee from the Rubiaceae
family.
The public database will help researchers ask fundamental
questions: Have changes from a common ancestor brought about the
attributes of crop species? What are the functions of specific
genes? How has domestication changed genes? Which plants might
be good candidates for genetically engineered improvements for
growing crops?
Cornell researchers are close to completing a toolkit of
resources about tomato and solanaceae species (some currently
available in the database) to make the sequencing possible.
These resources include genetic maps, DNA libraries, individual
gene sequences, DNA markers and associated information,
comparative mapping data to go from one species to another as
sequences are added, and tools to query and search this
information.
"The
intention is to create an entirely public database," said the
project's principal investigator, James Giovannoni (photo), a
plant microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Agriculture Research Station and BTI, both based at Cornell, and
an adjunct professor in Cornell's Department of Plant Biology.
As information is released, it is put online, he said.
In sequencing the 12 chromosomes that comprise the tomato's
genome, researchers from each of the nine other countries in the
project (China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain,
Netherlands and the United Kingdom) will sequence one
chromosome, with U.S. researchers sequencing three. As sequences
are completed, they will be analyzed by researchers in the
laboratory of Steven Tanksley, co-principal investigator and
Cornell's Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Breeding. The
database is housed in Tanksley's lab.
Because it is difficult and expensive to sequences all of a
species' genome, the researchers will just focus on gene-rich
areas at the end of each chromosome, where 80 to 90 percent of
the genes reside.
Lukas Mueller, a senior research associate in plant breeding and
genetics at Cornell, and Joyce Van Eck, a senior research
associate at BTI, are co-principal investigators on the project.
By Krishna Ramanujan |