International Team Decodes African Rice Genome

An international team of researchers has sequenced the complete genome of African rice Oryza glaberrima. This new development will enable scientists to develop new rice varieties that are better able to cope with increasing environmental stresses to help solve global hunger challenges.

The research effort was led by Rod Wing, director of the Genomics Institute at the University of Arizona. "Rice feeds half the world, making it the most important food crop," Wing said. He added that the African rice genome is important because many of the genes code for traits that make African rice resistant to environmental stress, such as drought, salinity, and flooding.

The genetic information will enhance understanding of the growing patterns of African rice, and will allow scientists to search for ways to cross Asian and African species to develop new varieties of rice.

The results of the sequencing project were published in an open-access paper by Nature Genetics (doi:10.1038/ng.3044). For more information, read the news release available at: http://uanews.org/story/generating-a-genome-to-feed-the-world-ua-led-team-decodes-african-rice.