In our Science Highlights: For more than half of the world’s population, rice is the primary staple crop. As a grass, it is a close relative of the candidate bioenergy feedstock switchgrass. We teamed with researchers at +UC Davis Official and the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a +U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center, to assemble the first major, large-scale collection of mutations for grass models. Our Plant Program team led by +HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology’s Jeremy Schmutz resequenced more than 1,500 rice mutants to help identify structural variants and mutations. This large-scale collection of more than 90,000 mutations affecting nearly 60 percent of all rice genes is now available on the publicly accessible database KitBase. This comprehensive resource could help identify rice lines with mutations in specific genes and to characterize gene function.

Read on: http://jgi.doe.gov/mutant-rice-database-bioenergy-research/


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