Biotech Updates

Monsanto Releases Soybean Cyst Nematode Draft Genome

March 7, 2008

Monsanto and Divergence announced that they have sequenced the soybean cyst nematode genome (SCN), the pathogen that causes as much as US $1 billion of yield loss to the U.S. soybean crop. The sequence will be made available to the public through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website.

"The SCN genome is the first available for any plant parasitic nematode," said James McCarter, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Divergence. "This draft assembly, based on 3-fold sequence coverage of the genome, provides key insights into the molecular mechanisms that enable SCN to invade and drain nutrients from soybean roots."  The companies believe that sharing the data, subject to Monsanto and Divergence intellectual property rights, will be an important step forward in research on SCN biology.

Read the press release at http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=579