The International Rice Genome Sequencing Project: progress and prospects.

The rice genome sequencing project has been pursued as a national project in Japan since 1998. At the same time, a desire to accelerate the sequencing of the entire rice genome led to the formation of the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP), initially comprising five countries. The sequencing strategy is the conventional clone-by-clone shotgun method using P1-derived artificial chromosome/bacterial artificial chromosome (PAC/ BAC) libraries from rice variety Nipponbare as a common template resource. As of September 2000, ten countries from this international collaboration had already contributed about 30 Mb of the rice genome sequence. Analysis of the rice genome should facilitate a better understanding of the concept of inheritance in the rice plant and the development of new research endeavors in physiology and biochemistry. Crucial information from nucleotide sequences will be useful for improving breeding technology as one of the ultimate goals of rice genome research.