Rice Genetics IV - IRRI books - International Rice Research Institute

Rice: a central genomefor the genetics of all cereals *M. Gale, G. Moore, and K. DevosThe past 15 years have seen an intense research drive to apply the newmolecular biology to rice. Initiatives such as the Rockefeller Foundation’sInternational Program on Rice Biotechnology, begun in the mid-1980s, havebeen underpinned by the in-depth corporate knowledge of the crop built up byresearch organizations in Southeast Asia such as the International Rice ResearchInstitute and accelerated by the application of a vast, and previouslyuncoordinated, research capacity in national programs in the area. Moreover,unlike the other two 500-million-ton crops, wheat and maize, rice has asmall tractable genome, and the development of genetic and genomic toolsnot available in any other cereal has ensured the promotion of rice as afavored research target. On top of all this, the discovery that gene contentand gene order—genome colinearity—have been maintained over the wholegrass family, which includes all cereals and many forage crops, has elevatedrice still further to the status of a “model” organism. The initiation of genomicDNA sequencing efforts in the public and private sector will furtherensure rice’s central position in plant science.In this chapter, we will describe the ways in which rice genomic tools andknowledge of the rice genome are already being applied in research on theother major cereals, wheat and maize. Moreover, many aspects of rice geneticscan be transferred to the “orphan” crops, the several minor economicgrass species that have not themselves warranted extensive research andbreeding.*This is a modified version of Gale et al (2001): “Rice—the pivotal genome in cereal comparativegenomics,” in Rice Biotechnology: Improving Yield, Stress Tolerance and Grain Quality, published byJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England, p 46-52; copyright© Novartis Foundation2001; with permission from the publisher.Rice: a central genome for the genetics of all cereals 79