PI: Ron Sederoff, North Carolina State University CoPIs: Jeff Tompkins, Clemson University; Paul Sisco, The American Chestnut Foundation Senior Personnel: Frederick Hebard, The American Chestnut Foundation; Chris Smith, Dahlia Nielsen, North Carolina State University; Sandra Anagnostakis, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station; John Carlson, Pennsylvania State University; William Powell, State University of New York, Syracuse.
The family of forest trees (the Fagaceae) that includes the chestnuts, oaks and beeches, dominate the hardwood forests of the northern hemisphere. This project will study the genomes of this family of trees because the species have significant economic value and represent a major natural resource. Chestnut will be used as the model to advance the production of an American chestnut (Castanea dentata) resistant to chestnut blight through physical identification of genes for resistance. Chestnut blight, caused by Cryphonectria parasitica, was among the greatest ecological disaster in this nation's history. This project would be the first genome project directed to ecosystem restoration and would provide a model for addressing ecological crises caused by pathogens and pests that threaten the world's forest resources. This project's work will focus on mapping of the chestnut genome and the comparison of chestnut to oaks, beeches and other forest trees. A major objective is an integrated genetic and physical map of chestnut that would become the basis for future targeted sequencing or whole genome sequencing.
The work proposed would accelerate breeding programs for chestnut for urban and rural forestry, food crops, timber, high quality wood products and ecological restoration. Scientific progress would be accelerated for all species of the Fagaceae. Breeding would be advanced for oak and beech species, as well. The selection of a disease resistant chestnut would have dramatic value for rural communities in the Appalachian Mountains, a region of the USA that is in great need of economic development. Resistant chestnut trees could restore a vast damaged ecosystem, provide nutrients for wildlife, and create major new economic resources.
The Project will help organize an international working community for genomics of the Fagaceae. A series of work shops developed with the Institute of Forest Biotechnology will be held for the Heritage Tree Program. Undergraduates and faculty from St. Augustine's, a Historically Black College, will take part in the bioinformatics analysis as summer interns. Genomics and Proteomics training will be provided to high school teacher as part of an ongoing program at Clemson University.
Access to project outcomes: Sequence data will deposited in GenBank (www.ncbi.nih.gov/Genbank/ ) within 60 days of analysis. A web site for the Fagaceae community has been set up at Clemson University (www.genome.clemson.edu/projects/fagaceae/). An archive of EST and BAC clones will be maintained at Clemson through the Clemson University of Genomics Institute (CGUI).
