The long term goal of this project is to identify, characterize, and understand the function of genes and naturally occurring allelic variants present in the sorghum germplasm collection that contribute to plant adaptation to the environment. The research team will map and sequence cDNA tags (short DNA sequences copied from mRNA) encoded by several gene dense regions of the sorghum genome using 'direct selection' technology and identify sorghum abiotic response genes by sequence similarity and cross species 'direct selection'. This research will further develop direct selection technology for gene mapping, physical map construction, and cross species analysis.
The research team is constructing an integrated genetic, physical, and gene content map of the sorghum genome using a novel approach based on multi-dimensional pooling of Bacteria Artificial Chromosome (BAC) DNA, Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) technology, and DNA fingerprinting. A high throughput 'direct selection' gene mapping technology has been developed to map genes across the gene-dense portions of the sorghum genome. This activity will provide valuable information about gene order in grasses, identify candidate genes in trait loci, help construct integrated genetic and physical maps, and create a deep collection of gene tags for microarrays.
