Improving the rice gene catalogue
An international group of researchers has received BBSRC-NSF funding to improve the rice genome annotation
Summary
- An international group of researchers have been awarded BBSRC-NSF funding to improve the rice genome annotation across representative cultivars and related species
- Rice is a vital global food source and its genome could hold the key to understanding how readily it adapts to extreme environments, including flooding and drought
- The newly annotated genome and protein information will be made readily available through Ensembl Plants and UniProt
09 March 2021, Cambridge – Researchers from Oregon State University, University of Arizona, University of Liverpool, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and CGIAR’s International Rice Research Institute have been awarded a three-year international project funding by the joint panel of the National Science Foundation (NSF, USA) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC, UK) to help to improve the rice genome annotation.
Rice is a staple for about 50% of the human population that continues to grow. It is essential to tap into the diversity of rice varieties that carry desirable genes and traits for local adaptation, resistance to diseases, and tolerance to periodic droughts, flooding, high temperatures and high salt in their existing cultivated environment.
This newly funded project titled, BBSRC-NSF/BIO PanOryza: Globally coordinated genomes, proteomes and pathways for rice, will re-establish international coordination to streamline, standardise and annotate the genes identified by various independent efforts to sequence the genomes of cultivated rice and its wild relatives.
Open access to the data
International coordination between plant scientists, breeders, data managers, and bioinformaticians is required to develop a common framework to assimilate and annotate the publicly available rice genomes and make these datasets freely available. Once complete, researchers will have open access to the newly assembled rice genomes within Ensembl Plants and access to protein information within UniProt.
“Access to these new and improved rice genomes will be a huge benefit to many researchers around the world,” says María Jesús Martín, Team Leader at EMBL-EBI. “We will ensure open access to both the new rice gene annotations and protein information to help accelerate research into this vital global food source.”
“This project will produce consistent gene names for the rice pangenome in collaboration with community partners and Gramene,” says Bruno Contreras-Moreira, Ensembl Plants Project Leader.
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