Functional Genomics of Safflower

一个主要的农业生物技术发展，现在接近市场，是利用转基因植物生产新的高价值蛋白质或医药产品。这一领域的研究和公司发展被称为“PMP”（植物制造药物）。PMP具有以相对较低的成本大规模生产高价值蛋白质的潜力，同时为生产者提供替代高价值作物。用于生产PMP的主要作物之一是红花（Carthamus tinctorius），这是加拿大西部的一种次要作物，仅用于鸟食，因此不是粮食作物。SemBioSys Genetics Inc.已经认识到研究非粮食作物的好处。虽然研究非粮食作物是一个优势，但缺点是缺乏对物种基因组和基因组成的了解。然而，一个好处是，一旦基因组工具可用于作物，生产力往往可以相当迅速地取得重大进展。这项拨款描述了一个研究项目，用于开发红花所需的许多基因组工具。这些基因组工具包括DNA资源的开发，如EST、DNA标记、分子图谱等，以及特定种质的开发，包括诱变系和定位群体。此外，其主要目标之一是在农业基因组学方面发展强大的研究小组。这需要一个具有基因组学、植物遗传学、种质评价和作物育种经验的科学家团队。该提案的长期目标是发展红花作为替代作物平台，改善加拿大生物技术和研究界可用的种质资源，并发展专业知识和适当的伙伴关系，使加拿大从这一替代作物平台中受益。我们提出的许多工作直到最近才变得可行，因为基因组技术的进步与成本的下降相一致，这使得较小的研究机构能够收集基因组信息并开发类似的资源。

A major agricultural biotechnology development, now approaching the market place, is the use of transgenic plants to produce novel high value proteins or pharmaceutical products. This area of research and company development has been termed "PMP's" (Plant Made Pharmaceuticals). PMP's have the potential to mass-produce high value proteins at relatively low cost while offering producers alternative high value crops. One of the key crops being utilized for the production of PMP's is safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), a minor crop within western Canada which is solely grown for birdseed and is therefore not a food crop. SemBioSys Genetics Inc. has recognized the benefit of working in a non-food crop. While working in nonfood crops is an advantage, a disadvantage is the lack of knowledge about the species genome and genetic makeup. However one benefit is that once genomic tools become available for the crop, significant advances in productivity can often be made fairly rapidly. This grant describes a program of research to develop many of the genomic tools that are necessary for safflower. These genomic tools include the development of DNA resources such as EST's, DNA markers, molecular maps, etc. and the development of specific germplasm including mutagenized lines and mapping populations. In addition, one of its key goals is to develop strong research groups in agricultural genomics. This requires a team of scientists with experience in genomics, plant genetics, germplasm evaluation and crop breeding. The long-term objectives of this proposal are to develop safflower as an alternative crop platform, to improve the germplasm available to the biotechnology and research communities in Canada, and to develop the expertise and appropriate partnerships to allow Canada to benefit from this alternative crop platform. Much of the work we are proposing has only recently become feasible due to the advances in genomic technologies coincident with their decreasing cost which have allowed smaller research institutions to gather genomic information and develop similar resources.