US-DOE-JGI Releases Data for Complete Soybean Genome

The United States Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (DOE-JGI) recently announced the complete draft assembly of the soybean (Glycine max) genetic code. It will be made widely available to the research community “to advance breeding strategies” of the crop for food, feed and biodiesel feedstock. The DOE-JGI’s interest in sequencing the soybean genome is for biodiesel applications. Soybean is said to account for 56% of the world’s oilseed production and 80% of biodiesel production in the United States in 2007. It is also “one of the largest and most complex plant genomes sequenced by the whole genome shotgun strategy”, according to Dan Rokhsar of the DOE-JGI. (“shotgun sequencing” involves the random breaking-up (“shearing”) of the DNA into small fragments so that the sequence of nucleotides can be analyzed and interpreted). Preliminary scientific details on the sequence analysis will have been reported at the Conference on Legume Genomics and Genetics in (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 8 December 2008). The soybean genome sequence can also be browsed at the phytozome website (URL above).

Related information: Shotgun sequencing (shockwave flash presentation): http://smcg.cifn.unam.mx/enp-unam/03-EstructuraDelGenoma/animaciones/humanShot.swf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_sequencing