title: Gramene: a bird's eye view of cereal genomes.
abstract: Rice, maize, sorghum, wheat, barley and the other major crop grasses from the family Poaceae (Gramineae) are mankind's most important source of calories and contribute tens of billions of dollars annually to the world economy (FAO 1999, http://www.fao.org; USDA 1997, http://www.usda.gov). Continued improvement of Poaceae crops is necessary in order to continue to feed an ever-growing world population. However, of the major crop grasses, only rice (Oryza sativa), with a compact genome of approximately 400 Mbp, has been sequenced and annotated. The Gramene database (http://www.gramene.org) takes advantage of the known genetic colinearity (synteny) between rice and the major crop plant genomes to provide maize, sorghum, millet, wheat, oat and barley researchers with the benefits of an annotated genome years before their own species are sequenced. Gramene is a one stop portal for finding curated literature, genetic and genomic datasets related to maps, markers, genes, genomes and quantitative trait loci. The addition of several new tools to Gramene has greatly facilitated the potential for comparative analysis among the grasses and contributes to our understanding of the anatomy, development, environmental responses and the factors influencing agronomic performance of cereal crops. Since the last publication on Gramene database by D. H. Ware, P. Jaiswal, J. Ni, I. V. Yap, X. Pan, K. Y. Clark, L. Teytelman, S. C. Schmidt, W. Zhao, K. Chang et al. [(2002), Plant Physiol., 130, 1606-1613], the database has undergone extensive changes that are described in this publication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Breeding, 240 Emerson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Pankaj
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jaiswal
authors.forename: Junjian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: Immanuel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yap
authors.forename: Doreen
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ware
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Spooner
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Youens-Clark
authors.forename: Liya
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Chengzhi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Kiran
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ratnapu
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Faga
authors.forename: Payan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Canaran
authors.forename: Molly
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fogleman
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hebbard
authors.forename: Shuly
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Avraham
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Terry M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Casstevens
authors.forename: Edward S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Buckler
authors.forename: Lincoln
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McCouch
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D002523:Edible Grain / Q000235:genetics*; D017343:Genes, Plant; D005819:Genetic Markers; D018745:Genome, Plant; D023281:Genomics; D020407:Internet; D012275:Oryza / Q000235:genetics; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled; D003313:Zea mays / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers; D010940:Plant Proteins