Rice Genome Races Ahead

Abstract

GENOME RESEARCH W hile government officials are struggling to reshape Japan's human genome effort, the country's Rice Genome Research Program (RGP) is moving forward with alacrity. Program scientists have put together highly detailed genetic and physical maps, and a large library of cDNA clones, reaching the major goals of the first 5-year phase of the program on schedule and within budget. The work, which includes 2400 DNA markers on a genetic map, has earned plaudits from plant geneticists around the world. The [RGP] project has been acclaimed, and rightly so, for its technical contributions, says Susan McCouch, a Cornell University geneticist who works on rice. The program is also getting a vote of confidence from the Japanese government in the form of a proposed 429 increase in funding. The growth could help offset a drop in contributions from the Japanese Racing Associationa quasi-public entity that runs betting operations at the country's horse-racing tracks and is required to donate a portion of its proceeds to agricultural researchthat once matched what the government spent but which have been hurt by a sluggish economy. Whatever the total, the money will support efforts to sequence all 450 million base pairs on the plant's 12 chromosomes and to expand efforts to identify genetic markers common to other cereals. Such a concerted effort has helped the country overcome a fast start by McCouch and her colleagues at Cornell, who published a basic genetic map in 1988. The U.S. agricultural research establishment is deep; Japan's is shallow, says Naoki Katsura, head of research planning for the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources (NIAR). So we recognized the merits of concentration. The logical choice was rice, not only because it has the smallest genome of any of the major cereals, but also because of its importance as a crop and as a cultural icon for Asia. The ministry and its researchers also concentrated resources in one location within NIAR's Tsukuba campus, assembling a team that has grown to 50 scientists. A similar strategy for the second phase of the projectdoubling the number of scientists and hiring more technicianswill also extend collaborations beyond current efforts with the John Innes Centre in Norwich, U.K., to identify markers common to rice and wheat, and scientific exchanges with the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baos in the Philippines. Katsura says he would also welcome help on the large-scale sequencing to shorten what otherwise might be a decade-long effort.