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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center » Dairy Forage Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #275115
Title: The switchgrass genome: tools and strategies

Author
item Casler, Michael
item Tobias, Christian
item KAEPPLER, SHAWN - University Of Wisconsin
item BUELL, ROBIN - Michigan State University
item WANG, ZENG-YU - Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Inc
item CAO, PEIJAN - University Of California
item RONALD, PAM - University Of California

Submitted to: The Plant Genome
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/27/2011
Publication Date: 12/7/2011
Citation: Casler, M.D., Tobias, C.M., Kaeppler, S.M., Buell, R., Wang, Z., Cao, P., Ronald, P. 2011. The switchgrass genome: tools and strategies. The Plant Genome. 4:273-282.

Interpretive Summary: Switchgrass is a perennial grass species receiving significant focus as a potential bioenergy crop. This paper is a review of the current state of knowledge on switchgrass genetics and genomics. It describes current activities that are focused on using modern DNA technology to learn more about switchgrass and to apply those tools to switchgrass improvement. Switchgrass genomic resources will accelerate the ability of plant breeders to enhance productivity, pest resistance, and nutritional quality.

Technical Abstract: Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a perennial grass species receiving significant focus as a potential bioenergy crop. In the last 5 years the switchgrass research community has produced a genetic linkage map, an expressed-sequence tag (EST) database, a set of SNP markers that are distributed across the 18 linkage groups, 4x sampling of the P. virgatum AP13 genome in 400-bp reads, and BAC libraries containing over 200,000 clones. These studies have revealed close colinearity of the switchgrass genome with those of sorghum, rice and Brachypodium. Switchgrass researchers have also developed several microarray technologies for gene expression studies. Switchgrass genomic resources will accelerate the ability of plant breeders to enhance productivity, pest resistance, and nutritional quality. Because switchgrass is a relative newcomer to the genomics world, many secrets of the switchgrass genome have yet to be revealed. To continue to efficiently explore basic and applied topics in switchgrass, it will be critical to capture and exploit the knowledge of plant geneticists and breeders on the next logical steps in the development and utilization of genomic resources for this species. To this end, the community has established a switchgrass genomics executive committee and work group (http://switchgrassgenomics.org/).