Opportunities and Challenges Grow from ArabidopsisGenome Sequencing

A recent Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory meeting in December 1997 provided the first meeting on the Arabidopsisgenome featuring a unique combination of functional studies and sequencing efforts; it included a broad range of talks covering genome sequencing and analysis efforts, mapping and defining genes, and gene expression patterns and function. Significant points to come out of the meeting were that a number of international consortiums have completed substantial portions of sequence on all five chromosomes with 17 Mb of sequence currently available through various web pages and 8 Mb of annotated sequence available through GenBank. Although physical maps of three of the five chromosomes have not yet been completed, David Bouchez (INRA, Versailles, France) reported that >90% of the clones in the CIC (CNRS, INRA, CEPH) Arabidopsis YAC library have been anchored via hybridization to genetically mapped markers. This should greatly facilitate the construction of physical maps. Michael Mindrinos from the Ausubel laboratory (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA) reported the development of a new class of PCR-based marker, the SNAPs (single nucleotideamplified polymorphisms), which should greatly assist positional cloning efforts. Daphne Preuss (University of Chicago, IL) reported the use of tetrad analysis to place the centromeres on the genetic map (Fig. 1), taking advantage of the pollen mutant quartet1 (Preuss et al. 1994; Copenhaver et al. 1998). Interestingly, this analysis placed the centromeres very close to, but not necessarily within, the centromeric repeat blocks mapped recently by Round et al. (1997).