ARS | Publication request: Formal collaboration between John Innes Pisum collection and USDA-ARS collection over Pisum genetic stocks.

Submitted to: Pisum Genetics
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: January 20, 2009
Publication Date: April 2, 2009
Citation: Ambrose, M.J., Coyne, C.J. 2009. Formal collaboration between John Innes Pisum collection and USDA-ARS collection over Pisum genetic stocks. Pisum Genetics 40:27.

Interpretive Summary: The reference collections of genetic stocks encompassing the known variation in a crop are of high strategic importance to the international research and breeding communities. Since the John Innes Centre took over the formal responsibility for the international Pisum genetic stock collection from Stig Blixt of the Nordic Gene Bank in 1993, the collection has continued to grow and a web searchable gene list has been developed. There is an increasing demand for the rest of the published pea genes by USA researchers not in the USDA collection. This germplasm is desired for pea breeding programs for crop improvement through fundamental studies on pea genetic processes (functional genomics). A collaboration has been initiated between the John Innes Pisum Collection Norwich, United Kingdon, and the USDA-ARS Western Regional Plant Introduction Station located in Pullman, Washington where a mirror of the mutation collection will be incorporated into the National Plant Germplasm System. The entire collection will be curated on behalf of the U.S. Government and will be available to all qualified scientists/organizations.

Technical Abstract: The USDA genetic stock collection is incomplete, only 101 genes (mutations) are represented with no alleles from another 246 published pea genes represented in the collection. This germplasm is desired for pea breeding programs for crop improvement through fundamental studies on pea functional genomics. The USDA pea genetic stock collection is primarily the life work of the pea geneticist Dr. Gerald A. Marx. The strength of this collection is that the interaction of pea mutations can be studied to explore epistatic and pleiotropic interactions. The weakness of the Marx pea collection is that the lines were received into the NPGS as still segregating populations. A formal collaboration has been initiated between the John Innes Pisum Collection and the USDA-ARS where a mirror of the mutation collection will be incorporated into the National Plant Germplasm System. The entire collection will be curated on behalf of the U.S. Government and will be available to all qualified scientists/organizations, domestic and foreign under the Standard Material Transfer Agreement set up by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.