Proceedings of the XLV Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - 26/29 September, 2001

ISBN 88-900622-1-5

Oral Communication Abstract

THE USE OF GENETIC PRINCIPLES TO INTEGRATE STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL GENOMIC INFORMATION

Tingey S. V.

DuPont Agriculture & Nutrition, 1 Innovation Way, Newark, DE 19714-6104

scott.v.tingey@usa.dupont.com

Advances in genetics, laboratory automation, and information management have led to the collection of vast amounts of information relative to the organization and identification of genes for many major crop species. Structural genomics efforts have improved the efficiency of gene discovery primarily through the collection of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) for most genes in maize, soybean, wheat, rice and tomato. These DNA sequence surveys of the expressed portion of the genome are being used to discover single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that will play an important role in association mapping, candidate gene identification and trait diagnostics within the context of a breeding program. These DNA sequence-based gene descriptions are also being used to drive functional genomics applications that seek to identify gene function, and to provide a description of the cellular and developmental expression of these genes, their protein products, and the interaction between proteins products of different genes. In general, current functional genomics efforts suffer from a lack of focus, creating vast amounts of genome-wide information without strategies or technologies that are capable of delivering a useful set of candidate genes. A reasonable set of candidate genes must be identified before any hypothesis driven validation process can occur. Genetic principles and practices can be used effectively to focus research efforts on regions of the genome that contain small numbers of candidate genes. Observed recombination effectively eliminates vast numbers of genes as candidates and focuses gene validation efforts on individual genes. This presentation will review our efforts to enable map-based isolation of candidate genes for important agricultural traits, including the development of an association-based approach to trait mapping, the creation of linked genetic and physical maps, and the placement of ESTs on that physical map.