Development of Genomic Resources in Strawberry
Description
The value of strawberry production in the United States was over 1.5 billion dollars in 2006. Lack of genomic resources in this important crop has hampered efforts to breed better varieties. The cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) is an octoploid, thus complicating efforts to study it genetically. One way to approach this is to examine a simpler model organism such as a related diploid. the 10 known Fragaria diploids, one has previous mapping and library development, Fragaria vesca. This project was initiated to expand the genomic resources available in this important horticultural commodity and eventually breed strawberry varieties with high disease resistance and low temperature tolerance.
Current Progress
Dr. Jahn Davik was able to create a BAC library from strawberry leaf
tissue from the available cultivar Ali Baba. This library has approximately
10X coverage, 20,000 clones, and an average insert size of 100 Kb. It is
available by contacting Dr. Jahn Davik directly through his contact information
below.
This library is being used for a number of research avenues, with an initial goal
of ascertaining the structure of the evergrowing locus. Dr. Davik is using probes
from the known evergrowing gene sequence from peach (Prunus persica) to identify
individual strawberry BACs that contain the homologous region. Current plans
include sequencing at least one of these BACs for further analysis.
Other genes of interest for this project include powery mildew resistance (MLO) and genes
involved in general disease resistance and low temperature tolerance. Dr. Davik is
bringing his new research and resources back to his lab in Norway at the end of the year.
His research institute is closely associated with a large strawberry breeding effort.
CUGI's Involvement
CUGI has provided usage of equipment and resources including help from a graduate student to facilitate the BAC library creation and hybridizations.
Contact Information
Dr. Jahn Davik
Click here to send an email
+47 97954473
Bioforsk Midt-Norge,
Kvithamar
N-7500 Stjordal, Norway