Project Overview
The Medicago truncatula sequencing project was initiated with a generous grant from Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation to the University of Oklahoma. Beginning in 2003 (and renewed in 2006), the National Science Foundation and the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme provided funding to complete sequencing of the euchromatic genespace. Among the eight chromosomes in Medicago, six were sequenced in the US by the NSF-funded projects, one (chromosome 5) was sequenced in France by Genoscope with funding from the EU and INRA, and one (chromosome 3) was sequenced in the United Kingdom with funding from the EU and BBSRC.
U.S Project - Principal Investigators
- Nevin Young (University of Minnesota)
- Bruce Roe (ACGT, University of Oklahoma; chromosomes 1, 4, 6, 8)
- Chris Town (JCVI/TIGR; chromosomes 2, 7)
European collaborators
- Giles Oldroyd (John Innes Center) coordinating sequencing of chromosome 3 at the Sanger Centre
- Frederic Debelle (INRA-CNRS) coordinating sequencing of chromosome 5 at Genoscope.
Pseudomolecule assembly was greatly aided by the construction of an optical map by David Schwartz and collueages at Laboratory for Molecular and Computational Genomics at UW-Madison.
Subsequent to the completion of the BAC-based assembly phase, ongoing efforts (in collaboration with the Medicago HapMap project) are aimed at completing the genome and its gene inventory using NextGen sequencing methods.
Genome annotation is being carried out by the International Medicago Genome Annotation Group (IMGAG), which involves participants from INRA-CNRS, JCVI/TIGR, NCGR, MIPS, MPIZ, UMN and VIB-Gent. A single uniform set of annotations (with periodic updates) of the gene-rich pseudomolecules, the unanchored BACs and the Illumina assemblies not captured by the BAC-based project are hosted at JCVI and MIPS.