Musa Genomics Workshop to be held in Arlington, Virginia, Summer 2001

Musa基因组学研讨会，弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿，2001年7月17-19日。Musa基因组学联盟在全球Musa改良计划的框架内成立。破译香蕉基因组是一项巨大的任务，需要世界各地科学家的参与和合作。该联盟将汇集并加强不同参与实验室的综合专业知识。组织这次会议是为了制定该联盟的战略并规划其实施。Musa基因组为研究单子房植物的基因组多样性提供了令人兴奋的新视角。它有一个小的基因组（500 - 600mb，仅比水稻大25%），非常容易完成功能和序列分析。栽培的Musa品种是经过数千年无性繁殖的不育无性系，而可育的野生二倍体在相同的环境中也在同一时期积极进化，使Musa成为研究植物进化的独特模式。不育和可育形式也与大多数Musa病原体共同进化，创造了一个研究植物/病原体进化的良好系统。芭蕉是第一个将副逆转录病毒整合到植物基因组中的物种，具有产生香蕉条纹有害病毒的能力。了解这一现象背后的机制可能会导致重要的应用，如基因靶向。Musa是少数具有双亲本细胞质遗传的植物物种之一：父本线粒体遗传和母本叶绿体遗传。Musa倍性水平的变异性提供了一个新的机会，以深入了解通常伴随多倍性的作物生产力的大于加性增益。棉花和甘蔗等多倍体在分类群中只包含一种多倍体，而Musa除了二倍体M. acuminata （AA）和M. balbisiana （BB）和AB杂交外，还包括几种类型的自多倍体（AAA， AAAA， AAAAAA）和异源多倍体（AAB， ABB， AABB， AAAB）。

Musa Genomics Workshop, Arlington VA. July 17-19 2001A Musa Genomic Consortium has been formed within the framework of the Global Program for Musa Improvement. Deciphering the banana genome is an enormous task that will require participation and collaboration of scientists around the world. The Consortium will bring together and enhance the combined expertise of the different participating laboratories. This meeting has been organised to develop the strategy for the Consortium and to plan its implementation. The Musa genome offers exciting new perspectives in studying genomic biodiversity of monocots. It has a small genome (500 to 600 Mb - only 25% larger than rice) that is highly tractable to complete functional and sequence analysis. Cultivated varieties of Musa are sterile clones that have been propagated vegetatively for thousands of years, while fertile wild diploid equivalents have been actively evolving for the same period in the same environment, ranking Musa as a unique model to study plant evolution. Sterile and fertile forms have also co-evolved with most of the Musa pathogens, creating an excellent system in which to study plant/pathogen evolution. Musa was the first species where a pararetrovirus was shown to be integrated into a plant genome, with the capacity to give rise to episomal banana streak badnavirus. Understanding the mechanism behind this phenomenon may lead to important applications, such as gene targeting. Musa is among few plant species with bi-parental cytoplasmic inheritance: paternal inheritance of mitochondria and maternal inheritance of chloroplasts. Variability in ploidy levels in Musa offers a new opportunity to gain insight to the greater-than-additive gains in crop productivity that often accompany polyploidy. Polyploids such as cotton and sugarcane contain only one type of polyploidy within the taxon, whereas Musa includes several types of autopolyploids (AAA, AAAA, AAAAAA), and allopolyploids (AAB, ABB, AABB, AAAB) in addition to diploid M. acuminata (AA) and M. balbisiana (BB) and AB hybrids.