Rice Functional Genomics: Challenges, Progress and Prospects

Rice has been chosen as a model cereal for functional genomics by the international scientific community because the ease with which it can be transformed, its well understood genetics with detailed genome physical maps, and dense molecular markers. In addition, there is great similarities in gene sequence, gene structure, gene order, and gene function among all the cereals and grasses. Genes identified in rice as being important will also be important in other cereals and any understanding of rice genes is directly applicable to the genes of other cereals. This book details rice functional genomics. It takes a multi-pronged genome-wide approach using structural similarities, expression profiles, and mutant phenotypes. Coverage includes the current status of genome sequencing and annotation, various tools, and resources being developed worldwide in the form of expressed sequence tags (ESTs), full-length cDNA, gene expression profiles and gene tagging.