This project uses a family-based genomics approach to increase the genetic resources available for identifying genes involved in food quality and vegetative reproduction in Euphorbiaceae. Our goals include generating a set of unigenes that will be useful in marker-assisted and genome-wide biology discovery, for accelerating plant breeding in cassava, and for identifying other important traits related to food quality and vegetative reproduction in related Euphorbiaceae. Development of DNA microarrays from the unigene set is expected to increase our efficiency at identifying the key regulatory genes, markers, physiological processes, and environmental interactions associated with growth and development, dormancy, and survival.

The ability to manipulate growth and development in plants has the potential to enhance crop production, reduce competition by weeds, and provide economic benefits to both private and public sectors. Identifying genes and biological mechanism that regulate growth and development will be crucial to identifying targets that can be manipulated. Although much focus has already gone into sequencing the genome of economically important crop species, a crucial aspect to identification of important genes through genomics application, the traditional funding communities have overlooked other important plant families having impacts on world economies. In particular are members of the diverse Euphorbiaceae plant family that includes globally important agricultural species such as: cassava, a daily food staple for over 600 million people; castor bean, an important oil crop; rubber tree, an important source of rubber; poinsettia, an important horticultural crop; leafy spurge, a significant perennial weed of North American plains and prairies; and annual weeds such as hophornbeam copperleaf, and endangered species such as Akoka and telephus spurge. This collaborative project has resulted in leafy spurge and cassava EST-databases for developing a unigene set that allows for cross-species comparisons and for the future production of Euphorbiaceae-specific DNA microarrays.

Suggested References

Anderson, J. V., Delseny, M., Fregene, M. A., Jorge, V., Mba C., Lopez, C., Restrepo, S., Soto, M., Piegu, B., Verdier, V., Cooke, R., Tohme, J., and Horvath, D. P. An EST resource for cassava and other species of Euphorbiaceae. Plant Mol. Biol. 56:527-539. 2004.

Horvath, D. P., Anderson, J. V., Chao, W. S., and Foley, M. E. Knowing when to grow: signals regulating bud dormancy. Trends Plant Sci. 8:534-540. 2003.