Solanaceae Genomics and Bioinformatics
The Solanaceae family contains several species relevant to agriculture including potato, tomato, tobacco, petunia, and pepper. While selected for diverse morphological features such as fruit (tomato, pepper, eggplant), tubers (potato), leaves (tobacco), and flowers (petunia), the Solanaceae share a high extent of sequence similarity. Previous work in my group has focused on generation of genomic resources for potato (Ronning et al. 2003; Rensink et al. 2005), identifying disease resistance genes in wild potato species (Song et al. 2003), and expression profiling (Rensink et al. 2005). We have also initiated comparative genomic analyses within the Solanaceae (Rensink et al. 2005) which confirmed earlier reports of conservation within the Solanaceae but also revealed a higher degree of species specific sequences within the Solanaceae than previously documented. My group is currently involved in the international Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium. In this project funded by the National Science Foundation, we are generating sequence from chromosome VI of potato. We are creating a suite of genomic and bioinformatic tools and resources for the potato community. This involves annotation of potato genome sequences and development of a “web portal” so that potato breeders and geneticists, along with other Solanaceae researchers, can access the genome sequence, annotation, and expression data in a meaningful, user-friendly manner.
