Title: "Dealing with duplicated genes in plant genomes"
Speaker: Scott Jackson, Department of Agronomy, Purdue University
Place: HORT 117; September 15, 2009, Tuesday, 4:30pm

Abstract

In contrast to animals, plants can have multiple copies of each gene in their genome with little or no deleterious effect. This is referred to as polyploidy. In fact, many of the plants that we eat (potato, banana, watermelon, wheat, etc...) are polyploid, that is have multiple copies of their genomes in the same nucleus. One major question in biology is how do newly formed polyploids deal with have multiple copies of each gene? In humans, for instance, if you have more than one copy any single chromosome (except for three chromosomes), it is lethal. However, plants have mechanisms to deal with multiple gene copies and we are using the recently sequenced soybean genome to understand how the genome has compensated for having multiple copies of most of its genes. I will present some analyses that have been done using next generation sequencing technologies and how we are using these to understand the biology of this important organism.

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