The B73 maize genome: complexity, diversity, and dynamics

Authors

Schnable PS, Ware D, Fulton RS, Stein JC, Wei F, Pasternak S, Liang C, Zhang J, Fulton L, Graves TA, Minx P, Reily AD, Courtney L, Kruchowski SS, Tomlinson C, Strong C, Delehaunty K, Fronick C, Courtney B, Rock SM, Belter E, Du F, Kim K, Abbott RM

Cotton M, Levy A, Marchetto P, Ochoa K, Jackson SM, Gillam B, Chen W, Yan L, Higginbotham J, Cardenas M, Waligorski J, Applebaum E, Phelps L, Falcone J, Kanchi K, Thane T, Scimone A, Thane N, Henke J, Wang T, Ruppert J, Shah N, Rotter K, Hodges J

Ingenthron E, Cordes M, Kohlberg S, Sgro J, Delgado B, Mead K, Chinwalla A, Leonard S, Crouse K, Collura K, Kudrna D, Currie J, He R, Angelova A, Rajasekar S, Mueller T, Lomeli R, Scara G, Ko A, Delaney K, Wissotski M, Lopez G, Campos D, Braidotti M

Ashley E, Golser W, Kim H, Lee S, Lin J, Dujmic Z, Kim W, Talag J, Zuccolo A, Fan C, Sebastian A, Kramer M, Spiegel L, Nascimento L, Zutavern T, Miller B, Ambroise C, Muller S, Spooner W, Narechania A, Ren L, Wei S, Kumari S, Faga B, Levy MJ, McMahan L

Van Buren P, Vaughn MW, Ying K, Yeh CT, Emrich SJ, Jia Y, Kalyanaraman A, Hsia AP, Barbazuk WB, Baucom RS, Brutnell TP, Carpita NC, Chaparro C, Chia JM, Deragon JM, Estill JC, Fu Y, Jeddeloh JA, Han Y, Lee H, Li P, Lisch DR, Liu S, Liu Z, Nagel DH

McCann MC, SanMiguel P, Myers AM, Nettleton D, Nguyen J, Penning BW, Ponnala L, Schneider KL, Schwartz DC, Sharma A, Soderlund C, Springer NM, Sun Q, Wang H, Waterman M, Westerman R, Wolfgruber TK, Yang L, Yu Y, Zhang L, Zhou S, Zhu Q, Bennetzen JL

Dawe RK, Jiang J, Jiang N, Presting GG, Wessler SR, Aluru S, Martienssen RA, Clifton SW, McCombie WR, Wing RA, Wilson RK

Science. 2009 Nov 20;326(5956):1112-5.

Abstract

We report an improved draft nucleotide sequence of the 2.3-gigabase genome of maize, an important crop plant and model for biological research. Over 32,000 genes were predicted, of which 99.8% were placed on reference chromosomes. Nearly 85% of the genome is composed of hundreds of families of transposable elements, dispersed nonuniformly across the genome. These were responsible for the capture and amplification of numerous gene fragments and affect the composition, sizes, and positions of centromeres. We also report on the correlation of methylation-poor regions with Mu transposon insertions and recombination, and copy number variants with insertions and/or deletions, as well as how uneven gene losses between duplicated regions were involved in returning an ancient allotetraploid to a genetically diploid state. These analyses inform and set the stage for further investigations to improve our understanding of the domestication and agricultural improvements of maize.