Overview (from JGI)

The temperate wild grass species Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) is a new model plant for temperate grasses and herbaceous energy crops. Temperate grass species such as wheat, barley, and forage grasses underpin our food supply. However, the size and complexity of their genomes is a major barrier to biotechnological improvement. Similarly, while herbaceous energy crops (especially grasses) are poised to become a major source of renewable energy in the United States, we know very little about the biology of traits that affect their utility for energy production. Thus a tractable temperate grass model is urgently needed to address questions directly relevant both for improving grain crops and forage grasses that are indispensable to our food production systems, and for developing grasses into superior energy crops. Neither rice nor Arabidopsis adequately fits this role.

Brachypodium is closely related to the cool-season grasses and is an emerging model system for the diverse and economically important grain, forage and turf crops that these groups encompass. The small Brachypodium genome can be used as an accurate template for the much larger polyploid genomes of crops such as wheat and barley. Moreover, since Brachypodium is inbreeding, small in stature, can be grown rapidly, and is amenable to transformation it can be used as a functional model to gain the knowledge about basic grass biology necessary to develop superior energy crops. This combination of desirable attributes underlies the burgeoning research interest in the species.

Statistics

This release of Phytozome include the JGI v1.0 8x assembly of Brachypodium distachyon Bd21 and the MIPS/JGI v1.0 annotation..

Genome

Approximately 272Mb arranged in 5 chromosomes and 78 unmapped scaffolds. (99.6% of all sequence is contained in the 5 chromosome assemblies.)

Loci

25,532 loci containing protein-coding transcripts

Transcripts

32,255 protein-coding transcripts

For more information please visit The Brachypodium distachyon Information Resource.

Sequence use restrictions

As a public service, the completed Brachypodium genome sequence is being made available by the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) before scientific publication according to the Ft. Lauderdale Accord. This balances the imperative of the DOE and the JGI that the data from its sequencing projects be made available as soon and as completely as possible with the desire of contributing scientists and the JGI to reserve a reasonable period of time to publish on the genome sequencing and analysis without concerns about preemption by other groups.

JGI policy is that early release should aid the progress of science. By accessing these data, you agree not to publish any articles containing analyses of genes or genomic data on a whole genome or chromosome scale prior to publication by JGI and/or its collaborators of a comprehensive genome analysis ("Reserved Analyses"). "Reserved analyses" include the identification of complete (whole genome) sets of genomic features such as genes, gene families, regulatory elements, repeat structures, GC content, or any other genome feature, and whole-genome- or chromosome- scale comparisons with other species.

The projected time line for publishing results of the Brachypodium genome sequencing project is mid-2009. Thus, the embargo on publication of such Reserved Analyses by researchers outside of the Brachypodium Genome Sequencing Project is expected to extend until this publication is accepted. Scientific users are free to publish papers dealing with specific genes or small sets of genes using the sequence data. If these data are used for publication, the following acknowledgment should be included: 'These sequence data were produced by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute'.This letter has been circulated to Journal Editors so that they are aware of the conditions of access and publication detailed above.

These data may be freely downloaded and used by all who respect the restrictions in the previous paragraphs. The assembly and sequence data should not be redistributed or repackaged without permission from the JGI. Any redistribution of the data during the embargo period should carry this notice: "The Joint Genome Institute provides these data in good faith, but makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for any purpose for which the data are used.¡ Once the sequence is moved to unreserved status, the data will be freely available for any subsequent use."

We prefer that potential users of this sequence assembly contact the Brachypodium Genome Sequencing Project co-directors (John Vogel, Michael Bevan, David Garvin, Todd Mockler) with their plans to ensure that proposed usage of sequence data are not Reserved Analyses.