Zea mays
Information about Zea mays
Zea mays (maize) is an important crop for food, fuel and feed. It was first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico (http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/) about 10,000 years ago and then widely cultivated throughout the world. Maize has the highest world-wide production of all grain crops, yielding 1,017,750,854 tonnes in 2013 (http://faostat3.fao.org/). In addition to its energy resources value, maize is also an important model organism for genetic studies.
Zea mays (mays) has about 2.3-gigabase genome size[1]. The current Reference Genome for Maize is B73 RefGen_v3 annotation build (5b+)[2]. B73 RefGen_v3 used Roche/454 reads produced from a whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing library to capture missing gene space within and between the original BACs. It has the following facts:
Zea mays (mays) has about 2.3-gigabase genome size[1]. The current Reference Genome for Maize is B73 RefGen_v3 annotation build (5b+)[2]. B73 RefGen_v3 used Roche/454 reads produced from a whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing library to capture missing gene space within and between the original BACs. It has the following facts:
● Genome size: ~2.1G (2,067,622,303bp)
● Number of chromosomes: 12 (2n=24)
● Number of unplaced scaffolds: 511
● Number of protein-coding genes: 39475
● Number of transcripts: 63391
● Number of chromosomes: 12 (2n=24)
● Number of unplaced scaffolds: 511
● Number of protein-coding genes: 39475
● Number of transcripts: 63391
Genome Re-sequencing Projects and Variation Identification
Recently, dozens of maize accessions have been sequenced, such as:
● 2009--- Jinsheng Lai et al. Resequenced 6 elite maize inbred lines.
● 2013---Fu J et al. 368 maize kernel RNA sequencing.
● 2013---Fu J et al. 368 maize kernel RNA sequencing.
References
[1] Schnable PS, Ware D, et al. 2009.The B73 maize genome: complexity, diversity, and dynamics. Science. 326:1112-1115.
[2] Campbell MS, Law M, Holt C, Stein JC, Moghe GD, Hufnagel DE, Lei J, Achawanantakun R, Jiao D, Lawrence CJ et al. MAKER-P: A Tool Kit for the Rapid Creation, Management, and Quality Control of Plant Genome Annotations. Plant Physiol 2014. 164:513-524.