John Innes Centre (JIC)
 |
Location : Norwich / UK |
| Leader : Michael BEVAN | |
| Website : www.jic.ac.uk |
Competences:
JIC has made key contributions to understanding cereal genomes, such as establishing the unitary nature of grass genomes, the physical mapping of rice and wheat chromosomes, and developing Brachypodium as a genome template and functional genomics resource for temperate grasses. JIC maintains close links with European wheat breeders and plays a pivotal role in developing and maintaining a wide range of unique germplasm and markers for wheat breeding and gene discovery. Through the Monogram and WGIN programmes JIC makes key contributions to aligning research in wheat to the objectives of breeders. The JIC develops methods and resources for wheat improvement, including high throughput transformation, high resolution genetic mapping populations, wheat germplasm resources, and genomics resources for gene isolation in wheat, including BAC libraries. The JIC Genome Laboratory maintains and distributes extensive plant genome resources, including wheat BAC libraries, and has state of the art robotic and sequencing platforms suitable for conducting the proposed work.
Role:
JIC’s main role will be to work in WP1 and WP2 to construct a physical map of BACs on chromosome 3DL. JIC scientists will also provide resources and information from the Brachypodium genome programme for developing new sets of COS markers for comparative genomics work in WP2. JIC will also establish a comparative genomics database to relate the rice and Brachypodium genome sequence to the integrated genetic and physical maps of wheat and barley in WP5.
Staff members’ profile:
Dr. Michael Bevan is Head of the Cell and Developmental Biology Dept at the JIC and will lead the JIC’s contributions to the TriticeaeGenome Project. He has made important contributions to plant genome projects and European plant research: he initiated the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative and coordinated the final analyses and publications describing the first plant genome sequence (1, 2). He helped to initiate sequencing of the rice genome and helped in the physical mapping of rice chromosome 2 (3, 4). Recently he initiated a successful international programme to sequence Brachypodium distachyon.
Dr. Simon Griffiths is a Senior Wheat Geneticist in the Dept of Crop Genetics at JIC. He has extensive expertise in chromosome biology, comparative genomics and trait analysis in wheat and will provide his knowledge and practical experience in building physical maps of wheat chromosomes (5, 6) and interpreting wheat genome sequence in WP2 and WP3.
Dr. John Snape is Head of the Crop Genetics Dept at JIC. He is a world-expert in wheat genetics and comparative genomics and has developed many key genetic resources and technical capabilities in wheat, including genetic markers and mapping populations for trait analysis and gene isolation (7) and Agrobacterium-based methods for cereal transformation (8). He will guide research and interpretation in comparative genomics research in WP2 and lead outreach from TriticeaeGenome to the breeding community in the UK.
References:
- Griffiths S., Sharp R., Foote T.N., Bertin I., Wanous M., Reader S., Colas I. and Moore G. (2006). Molecular characterisation of Ph1 as a major chromosome pairing locus in polyploidy wheat. Nature 439, 749.
- M. J. Hayden, P. Stephenson, A. M. Logojan, D. Khatkar, C. Rogers, J. Elsden, R. M. D. Koebner, J. W. Snape and P. J. Sharp (2006). Development and genetic mapping of sequence-tagged microsatellites in bread wheat. Th. Appl. Genetics. 113, 1271.
- International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (2005). The map-based sequence of the rice genome. Nature 436, 793.
- S. Travella, S. M. Ross, J. Harden, C. Everett, J. W. Snape and W. A. Harwood (2005). A comparison of transgenic barley lines produced by particle bombardment and Agrobacterium- based techniques. Plant Cell 23, 780.
- S. Griffiths, R. P. Dunford, G. Coupland and D. A. Laurie (2003). Evolution of constans-like gene families in barley, rice and Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. 131, 1855.
- K. Mayer, G. Murphy, R. Tarchini, R. Wambutt, G. Volckaert, T. Pohl, A. Düsterhöft, W. Stiekema, KD. Entian, N. Terryn, K. Lemcke, D. Haase1, C. R. Hall, AM. van Dodeweerd, S. V. Tingey,HW. Mewes, M. W. Bevan, and I. Bancroft (2001). Conservation of microstructure between a a sequenced region of the genome of rice and multiple segments of the Arabidopsis genome. Genome Res. 11, 1167.
- The Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. (2000). Analysis of the genome sequence of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature 408, 796
- Mayer, K. et al and Bevan, M.W. (1999). Sequence and analysis of chromosome 4 of Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature 402, 769.
Show all the institutions
This project is supported by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme
for Research and Technological Development