Researchers Map Genome Of Two Important Spruce Tree Species

April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

The genomes of two of the most economically important forest trees in the world were released by Canadian and Swedish scientists. In Canada, the conifers supply raw materials for the forest industry, accounting for $23.7 billion of the nations economy in 2011, while the gross output of the Swedish forest industry was $29.7 billion in 2009.

Between them, the white spruce and the Norway spruce genomes have 20-30 billion base-pairs and are up to 10 times larger than the human genome, making these sequence assemblies the largest to date.

THE WHITE SPRUCE

A group of Canadian scientists, led by Professor Steven Jones, Head of Bioinformatics at the BC Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre (BCGSC) and a professor at both the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University (SFU), sequenced the white spruce genome as part of the SMarTForests Project.

SMarTForests builds upon previous discoveries of the past decade to break new ground in spruce genome sequencing in order to represent Canada in international conifer genome initiatives and to achieve efficient translation of results toward end-users from across Canada.

Attempting the sequencing of such a large genome was an incredibly ambitious task and required the development of novel software and innovative use of DNA sequence technology to piece together short DNA sequences to form this massive genome, much like a large jigsaw puzzle, said Jones. The findings of this study were published in the journal Bioinformatics.

Many projects are now attempting to decipher genomes of economically important plants, Inanc Birol, a scientist with BCGSC and a professor with both UBC and SFU, said in a statement. We demonstrated a superior and less expensive method to do the job.

These genome sequences allow us to develop innovative tools for tree breeding, addressing economically and ecologically important targets such as insect resistance, wood quality, growth rates and adaptation to changing climate added UBC Prof. Joerg Bohlmann, a collaborator on both studies.

A genome-based marker system could serve to reduce the time of a spruce breeding cycle from currently 25 to as short as five years, and will contribute directly to the competitiveness of the Canadian and Scandinavian forest industry, said Prof. John MacKay of Universit Laval, who also participated in both studies.

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Researchers Map Genome Of Two Important Spruce Tree Species