November 18, 2005

USDA announces US$32-million funding for corn genome project
 

The USDA announced on Nov 15 a US$32-million funding to a team of US university and private laboratory researchers for a corn genome-sequencing project. The funding was provided by the country's National Science Foundation (NSF), and Department of Energy (DOE) and the USDA itself.

"Knowing the genetic sequence of corn will help researchers to increase yields, reduce inputs and develop more disease-resistant varieties," said Joseph Jen, USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics.

James Collins, head of the biological sciences directorate at NSF also said, "Having a genome sequence for corn will advance our understanding of the biology of important but poorly understood processes such as hybrid vigour and asexual plant production.

He added, "This investment is yet another step along the road in using genomics to transform the plant sciences."

The corn genome contains an estimated 50,000-60,000 genes scattered among the 2.5 billion bases of DNA that make up its 10 chromosomes. By comparison, the human genome contains about 2.9 billion bases and approximately 26,000 genes. 

The interdisciplinary team will draw on the successes of many other completed sequencing efforts, including some previously sequenced sections of the corn genome as well as the rice and human genomes, to ensure speed and accuracy of the project. 

All sequence data produced by the team will be deposited immediately into GenBank, a public repository for genome sequence data.

Corn ranks among the world's major grain crops and dominates American agriculture. In 2004, 81 million acres of corn were planted with a production value of over US$23 billion, mainly for feed and food use. Corn ranks tops among US exports, with an estimated 2 billion bushels shipped out of the country in 2004.

Researchers on the corn genome-sequencing project are from the US' Washington University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Iowa State University, University of Arizona, University of California, Berkeley, the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, University of Georgia and Stanford University.