1. http://barleygenome.org/ Mission statement Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) was one of the first domesticated cereal grains, originating in the Fertile Crescent over 10,000 years ago. Barley ranks fifth in worldwide crop production and is widely cultivated in all temperate regions from the Arctic Circle to the tropics. In addition to its geographic adaptability, barley is particularly noted for its tolerance to cold, drought, alkali, and salinity. The barley genome - with 5.3 billion letters of genetic code - is one of the largest in cereal crops measuring about twice the size of the human genome. Barley is a true diploid, thus, it is a natural archetype for genetics and genomics for the Triticeae tribe, including polyploid wheat, and rye. Highly collaborative international efforts have produced a substantial body of genetic and genomic resources in the past several years. The objective of IBSC is to physically map and sequence the barley gene space including the 5’ and 3’ regulatory regions of genes. The central goal is to develop an ordered physical map linked to the genetic map in order to accelerate gene isolation and crop improvement and to provide the basis for the longer-term goal of sequencing the barley genome. Ongoing Activities Contig-based and shotgun whole genome sequencing Physical map construction: HICF of 83000 gene-containing genes, collaborative project between UCR (TJ Close) and UC Davis (MC Luo) - expiry: end 2007, funding: NSF Plant Genome Research Program 10x genome coverage HICF ongoing as collaborative project between IPK, ACPTG and TU Munich - ongoing (2007-2009), funding: Leibniz Association, ACPFG 200,000 BAC clones HICF- ongoing 2007 – 2010, funding: BMBF anchoring physical map for chromosomes 1H and 3H- approval pending, expected starting date: 2008, funding: EU-FP7 Research Agenda Members Australian Center for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG)Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) Peter LangridgeAndreas Graner (chair), Nils Stein (vice-chair) MTT Agrifood / University of HelsinkiScottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) Alan SchulmanRobbie Waugh Okayama UniversityUniversity of California, Riverside Kazuhiro SatoTimothy J Close& National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS)USDA-ARS / Iowa State University Takashi MatsumotoRoger Wise Genetic mapping: 3000 ESTs mapped via SNP, Okayama University (K Sato)- completed 1000 EST consensus map, IPK (A Graner)- completed ~2500 EST mapped via SNP ILLUMINA Golden Gate Assay (TJ Close, R Waugh, N Stein) - Completed. Funded by NSF Plant Genome Research Program and BarleyCAP (TJC), AGOUEB (RW), IPK core funding and BMBF/GABI (NS). ~4000 unigenes via SFP and eQTL analysis (R Waugh, R Wise)- completed Sequencing: 25,000 full length cDNAs, NIAS (T Matsumoto, K Sato)- funding available, ongoing 500 chromosome 3H BACs of cv. Haruna Nijo (K Sato)- funding available, ongoing 250,000 BAC clones end sequencing (SCRI, IPK, Udine University) - funding available ERA-PG 3000 BACs low-pass shotgun sequencing - funding available, BMBF Anchoring the physical map to the high-density and high-resolution genetic map of barley: mapping of up to 10 - 15,000 barley genes, BAC end sequencing and mapping, colinearity to model genomes Developing a physical map by High Information Content Fingerprinting (HICF) – target: 15x haploid genome coverage Sample sequencing the barley genome: Gene-enriched library sequencing (GSS), contig- and sample-BAC sequencing progress towards efficient gene isolation and genomic sequencing in barley