Medicago truncatula Sequencing Consortium
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[edit] Medicago truncatula Sequencing Consortium
The Medicago truncatula Sequencing Consortium is an international partnership of research laboratories that is decoding the genome sequence of Medicago truncatula, a model legume species. Legumes are a family of plants, including soybean, alfalfa and bean, which form ecologically important symbioses with bacteria (rhizobia) and fungi (mycorrhiza). Knowing the sequence of the Medicago truncatula genome is expected to facilitate genomics research in legumes, especially the biology of symbiosis because Medicago truncatula and its symbiotic partner, Sinorhizobium meliloti, are frequently used as models for symbiosis research.
Sequencing in Medicago truncatula is taking place at the University of Oklahoma (US), J. Craig Venter Institute (US), Genoscope (France), and Sanger Centre (UK). Partner institutions include the University of Minnesota (US), University of California-Davis (US), the National Center for Genomic Resources (NCGR) (US) , John Innes Centre (UK), Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (France), Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences (MIPS) (Germany), Wageningen University (Netherlands), and Ghent University (Belgium). The Medicago truncatula Sequencing Consortium began in 2001 with a seed grant from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. In 2003, the National Science Foundation and the European Union 6th Framework Programme began providing most of the funding. The majority of the gene-containing portion of the Medicago truncatula genome is expected to be complete by the end of 2008.
Sequencing in Medicago truncatula is based on bacterial artificial chromosomes. This is the same approach used in human and in a small number of reference genomes like fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, and the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. The technique is slower, but typically more accurate, than the now more common approach known as Shotgun sequencing.
A parallel group known as the International Medicago Gene Annotation Group (IMGAG) is responsible for identifying and describing putative gene sequences within the genome sequence.
REFERENCES
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/43/15289
Cannon et al (2006) Proceedings National Academy Sciences USA, 103:14959-14964. http://www.medicago.org/genome/
website for US component of the Medicago truncatula Sequencing Project http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/137/4/1174
Young et al (2005) Plant Physiology 137: 1174-1181.
http://www.ncgr.org/ http://www.medicago.org/genome/IMGAG/ http://www.noble.org/ http://medicago.toulouse.inra.fr/ http://mips.gsf.de/proj/plant/jsf/medi/index.jsp
