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About Zea mays
Of all grain crops, maize (corn) has the highest world-wide production, yielding 817 million tonnes in 2009. Although a food staple in many regions of the world, most grain is used for animal feed and ethanol fuel. Maize was domesticated from wild teosinte in Central America and its cultivation spread throughout the Americas by Pre-Columbian civilizations. In addition to its economic value, maize is an important model organism for studies in plant genetics, physiology, and development. It has a large genome, ~2.4 Gb, with a haploid chromosome number of 10. Maize is distinguished from other grasses in that its genome arose from an ancient tetraploidy event unique to its lineage.
Genome Sequencing and Gene Prediction (Release B73 RefGen_v2 (AGPv2))
The complete genome sequence of Zea mays cv. B73 was published in 2009 by the NSF-funded Maize Genome Sequencing Project (Schnable et al 2009). The high-quality assembly was accomplished by a strategy of sequencing individual BAC clones along a minimum tiling path anchored to genetic and physical maps. Genes were annotated using both an evidence-based approach (e.g. using cDNA and EST data) and an ab initio approach (Fgenesh), which were combined to give a unique non-overlapping gene set. The present browser is based on assembly version B73 RefGen_v2.
Gramene/Ensembl Genomes Annotation
Additional annotations generated by the Gramene/Ensembl Genomes projects include:
- The standard set of Gramene analyses detailed here.
- Phylogenetic gene trees and whole-genome alignments with several plant and metazoan species, using Ensembl's Compara pipeline.
- Known gene loci, a set of canonical and well-studied sequence-associated genes, maintained and curated by MaizeGDB, were mapped to the working gene set.
- Alignments of curated maize MicroRNAs.
Links
References
- Schnable P., Ware D., et al. The B73 Maize Genome: Complexity, Diversity, and Dynamics. Science 2009. 326:1112-1115
- Gore M. A., Chia J. M., et al. A First-Generation Haplotype Map of Maize. Science 2009. 326:1115-1117
- Wei F., Stein J.C., et al. Detailed analysis of a contiguous 22-Mb region of the maize genome. PLoS Genetics 2009. 5(11):e1000728
- Zhang L., et al. A genome-wide characterization of microRNA genes in maize. PLoS Genetics 2009. 5(11):e1000716
- Wei F., et al. The physical and genetic framework of the maize b73 genome. PLoS Genetics 2009. 5(11):e1000715
- Zhou S., et al. A single molecule scaffold for the maize genome. PLoS Genetics 2009. 5(11):e1000711
- Liang C., Mao L., Ware D., Stein, L. Evidence-based gene predictions in plant genomes. Genome Research 2009. 19(10):1912-23
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