admin's blog

In order to facilitate the community curation of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL), the Gramene team has published a proposed QTL load file format and instructions for submitting new QTL to Gramene for inclusion in our QTL database and comparative maps. If you have any questions or comments about this proposal, please write gramene@gramene.org.

The genome sequencing of Papaya variety called SunUp was reported recently by Ming et al. Nature. 2008 Apr 24;452(7190):991-6 (PMID: 18432245). SunUp was also the first commercial virus-resistant transgenic fruit tree.

The genome (DNA content) of one of the most commonly found ingredient in your salad, the cucumber (Cucumis sativus var. sativus L.), has been sequenced. A report was published in Nature Genetics on November 1, 2009, (PubMed ID 19881527) by the authors Huang, et al., on sequencing the "Chinese long" inbred line 9930 of the cucumber. Their study revealed that five of its seven chromosomes show fusions of ten ancestral chromosomes after divergence from Cucumis melo.

Dr. Pamela Ronald (UC Davis) recently "posted a time-lapse video (4 months) showing the performance of a genetically improved rice in a flooded field plot at the International Rice Research Institute" that we thought would be interesting to share. For a complete description of the "submergence tolerance (Sub1) rice," please see her blog.

The Gramene team is happy to announce the 30th release of our website.

Zhang et al. (Plant Phys, Sept 23) report the influence of TLD1/GH3.13 (PlantGeneWiki: GR:0020049) gene on plant architecture and drought tolerance through the isolation of a gain of function rice mutant, tld1-D. TLD1 is a IAA-amido synthetase that conjugates free IAA to amino acids, in turn reducing available free IAA in the plant. Its expression is suppressed in above ground regions of the plant but is rapidly induced during drought stress.

We would like to invite the attendees of the 9th International Plant Molecular Biology (IPMB) Congress to be held from October 25-30, 2009 in St. Louis, MO, USA to the Gramene Database and Plant Ontology Workshop. The workshop is free and open to everyone.

Workshop Title: Comparative Plant Genomics with the Gramene database and Plant Ontology project

When: Monday October 26, 6-9pm (Workshop lists)

In a recent report published in the Transgenic Res. 2009 Sep 22., authors Anand and Tyagi, identified a cDNA for the gene encoding the arabinogalactan protein (AGP) . The cDNA (586bp) isolated from the Oryza sativa indica cDNA library was shown to be  expressing preferentially in the inflorescence.

Bioinformatics and software programmer job openings at the rank of Faculty Research Assistant are available in the Jaiswal lab at the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology to work on the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics projects.  This is a full-time, (1.0 FTE), 12-month, fixed-term position working in Dr. Pankaj Jaiswal's lab (http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/bpp/faculty/jaiswal/). The positions are renewable.

Reactome is committed to providing access to high-quality pathway information and helpful data analysis tools and are actively soliciting comments from researchers in order to assess community needs. They are interested hearing about your experience with Reactome and would like to know a bit about your background and research interests in order to improve the Reactome site and tools. Please take a moment to answer their user survey.