Functional genomics applied to the study of sunflower genes involved in responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.

HEINZ, R.A.; CHAN, R.; DE LA CANAL, L.; PANIEGO, N.; AGUIRREZÁBAL, L.A.N.; DOSIO, G.A.A.; HOPP, H.E.

UC Davis

Encuentro; Compositae White Paper Meeting; 2006

Compositae Genome Project

The Compositae is the most diverse and largest of angiosperm families, comprising one-tenth of all flowering plant species.  Several species in the family are economically important but understudied.  The family contains over 40 crops and six of the top ten noxious weeds in the U.S.  Lettuce is one of the top ten crops in the US worth over $2 billion and sunflower ranks fourth or fifth in production among oilseed crops worldwide with a value over ~$40 billion. Extensive genetic, EST and more limited BAC library resources exist for lettuce and sunflower.  A chip for massively parallel genetic and expression analyses is under development for lettuce.  Only limited genomic resources exist for other Composite species.  Leontodon taraxacoides has been recently identified as a potential small genome model species but has not yet been developed. In the short term, the high priorities include sequencing of the gene space of lettuce and sunflower, massively parallel genetic analysis, and determination of the genetic and molecular bases of agriculturally important and evolutionarily significant genes. In the longer term, resources need to be developed to facilitate the sequencing of lettuce, sunflower and Leontodon.  These include expansion of the BAC libraries, fingerprinting and development of a minimum tiling path, and BAC-end sequencing.  When sequencing costs are further reduced these three species should be sequenced.  In addition, genomics tools developed for lettuce, sunflower and Leontodon need to be applied to other Composite species.