PROJECT SUMMARY
We are using comparative genomics to investigate the process of genome restructuring
following polyploidization in plants. Polyploidization events are believed to have
occurred multiple times in the evolutionary history of most, and perhaps all,
flowering plants, and have lead to dramatic changes in genome structure.
Many of our most important crop plants, such as wheat, corn, and soybean,
have undergone polyploidization events within the last 20 million years.
To gain insight into how polyploidization events impact plant genomes, we are
analyzing patterns of gene rearrangement associated with both old (9 mya) and
recent (<50 kya) polyploidy events in the Glycine genus.
Specifically, we are determining the sequence of an approximately 1 megabasepair
interval from each of six legume taxa, as well as the duplicated regions in
the polyploid members (12 intervals in total). These taxa include
two soybean cultivars, the closest true diploid relative of soybean
Teramnus labialus and a recent polyploid relative,
Glycine tomentella , that has twice as many chromosomes as
soybean. The genomic interval to be sequenced contains several
commercially important disease resistance (R) genes
in soybean, and contains both rapidly rearranging and relatively
stable chromosomal blocks. These analyses will address
fundamental questions regarding genome evolution on both short
(<100,000 years) and long (>50 million years) time scales,
as well as questions regarding the evolution of R genes.
This sequence collection will also facilitate identification of conserved
promoter elements and non-coding RNAs. All sequence data, physical
maps, and analyses will be made publicly available through this web-site.
This project is funded by the NSF Plant Genome Research Program , and involves a close collaboration among five research labs:
- Innes lab at Indiana University
- Young lab at the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus
- Doyle lab at Cornell University
- Saghai-Maroof lab at Virginia Tech University
- Roe lab at the University of Oklahoma
Educational features of the project
Our project is linked to the educational and non-science community via direct collaborations with two hands-on science museums in Bloomington, Indiana (www.wonderlab.org) and Blacksburg, Virginia, (www.vtmnh.vt.edu/) and by two high school outreach programs at the University of Minnesota and Cornell University ( bti.cornell.edu/Brutnell_lab2/Projects/ESGP/ESGP-Program.html). Hands-on activity kits are being developed that will be used for public events at museums, and more importantly in K-12 classrooms. Classroom use is being promoted through a series of teacher training workshops hosted at each museum. All kits will be specifically designed to address state academic standards in science and will teach principles in plant biology and evolution.
