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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #119971
Title: THE PUBLIC SOYBEAN GENOME PROJECT: STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS

Author
item Shoemaker, Randy
item KEIM, PAUL - NORTHERN ARIZONA
item VODKIN, LILA - UNIV. ILLINOIS
item RETZEL, ERNEST - UNIV MINNESOTA
item CLIFTON, SANDRA - WASHINGTON UNIV
item SMOLLER, DAVID - INCYTEGENOMICS, INC

Submitted to: Midwest Soybean Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/15/2001
Publication Date: 8/11/2002
Citation: SHOEMAKER, R.C., KEIM, P.S., VODKIN, L., RETZEL, E.F., CLIFTON, S., SMOLLER, D. THE PUBLIC SOYBEAN GENOME PROJECT: STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS. MIDWEST SOYBEAN CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS. 2002. p. 706.

Interpretive Summary: The soybean producers have funded a public project to identify many thousands of genes from soybean. This paper provides a review of this project as well as of a related project. So far, soybean genes have been 'discovered' from as many as 50 gene libraries. Some of these genes have never been seen before. The genes come from gene libraries that represent various stages of development, organs and environmentally and biologically stressed material. More than 130,000 randomly selected gene codes have been generated and deposited into a public database. In addition to this project, a genome sampling project funded by the National Science Foundation is resulting in the sampling of genomic sequences at 1,000 different locations. This is being done in an attempt to identify genes that may not be found in the other project. To date, more than 1,500 genomic sequences have been generated and deposited into Genbank. Only about 6% of these sequences represent known genes. The majority represent repetitive sequences (jumping genes) or have no known homology to anything in the database. Together, these projects are providing a wealth of information regarding the makeup of the soybean genome and will tell scientists much about how soybean functions.

Technical Abstract: A public project is underway to partially sequence 200,000 randomly selecte cDNA clones from soybean. To date, more than 70 gene libraries have been developed representing various stages of development, organs and environmental and biological stressed material. More than 130,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) have been generated and deposited into dbEST. These ESTs were derived from approximately 50 libraries. Each EST is on average, 430 bp in length. In addition to the EST project, a genome sampling project funded by the National Science Foundation is resulting in the sampling of genomic sequences at 1,000 mapped loci. To date, more than 1,500 genomic sequences have been generated and deposited into Genbank. Only 6% of these sequences represent known genes. The majority represent repetitive sequences (retrotransposons and transposons) or have no known homology to anything in the database. Together, these projects are providing a wealth of information regarding the structural ad functional makeup of the soybean genome.