Putting the Function in Maize Genomics

The 51st Maize Genetics Conference was held March 12–15, 2009 at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, Illinois. Nearly 500 attendees participated in a scientifi c program (available at http://www.maizegdb.org/maize_meeting/2009/) covering a wide range of topics which integrate the rich biology of maize with recent discoveries in our understanding of the highly dynamic maize genome. Among the many research themes highlighted at the conference, the historical emphasis on studying the tremendous phenotypic diversity of maize now serves as the foundation for maize as a leading experimental system to characterize the mechanisms that generate variation in complex plant genomes and associate evolutionary change with phenotypes of interest. CHARLES DARWIN (1868) noted that “Maize has varied in an extraordinary and conspicuous manner.” Th e study of phenotypic diversity and its causal basis has long been a primary focus of maize geneticists. Th e scientifi c advances reported at the 51st annual Maize Genetics Conference held near Chicago in March, 2009, refl ect eff orts to understand how maize diversity is generated and contributes to phenotypes of importance to plant biology and crop improvement. Maize Genome Structure, Annotation, and Dynamics A primary topic of interest was the status of maize genome sequencing projects. Doreen Ware (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) provided an update on the draft genome of the B73 inbred line, where nearly 17,000 assembled BAC sequences anchored to the maize physical map are available through the everimproving genome browsers at www.maizesequence.org and MaizeGDB (http://www.maizegdb.org/gbrowse). Comparative analyses reveal a dramatic increase in retrotransposon density near breaks in synteny with genomes of related grasses, suggesting a role for these repeated sequences in mediating chromosomal rearrangements. Recognizing the expected structural diversity of the maize genome and the power of new short-read sequencing technologies, Dan Rokhsar S.P. Moose, Dep. of Crop Sciences and Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA; M.G. Muszynski, Dep. of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, 1210 Molecular Biology Building, Ames, IA, 50011, USA; P. Rogowsky ENS-Lyon, RDP, 46 Alle d’Italie, Lyon, Cedex, 69364, FRANCE; M. Guo, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, 7300 NW 62nd Avenue, Johnston, IA, 50131, USA. Received 5 June 2009. *Corresponding author (smoose@illinois.edu). Abbreviations: NAM, nested association mapping. Published July, 2009