The Map-Based Sequence of Barley Is Coming Along

Barley is one of the most important cereal crop species. It is a close relative to wheat and rye. Its haploid genome size exceeds 5 Gigabases (Gbp), almost twice the size of any fully sequenced organism or crop species. Recently, the International Barley Sequencing Consortium (IBSC) succeeded to establish access to a gene-centric view of the barley genome: a physical map densely integrated with the genetic map and substantiated by ~400 megabases of assembled whole genome shotgun sequence containing more than 20,000 transcriptionally active genes. This resource is under constant improvement and up to now more than 60% of the assembled genomic sequence information (1.2 Gbp) could be integrated into a genetic frame. IBSC is furthermore heading for a complete genome sequence and a minimal tiling path (MTP) of overlapping BAC clones provided by the physical map is being processed for hierarchical map-based sequencing. Raw sequencing data could be generated so far for 5 of the 7 barley chromosomes with a perspective of having raw sequence data of all seven barley chromosomes accumulated by spring 2014.

This step-changing resource of genomic sequence information is enabling true genome scale analysis in barley and lays the foundation for genomics based breeding and crop improvement. State-of-the-art examples of barley genomic research and applications exploiting the potential of the new resource will be presented to illustrate how barley breeding and crop improvement has started to change at least from a genetics/genomics perspective.