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Columns::February 4, 2002
Above and beyond
Massive undertaking
Campus News
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| Andrew Paterson’s lab also has developed the world’s leading genetic maps for cotton, sorghum, sugarcane and buffel grass. (Photo by Maria Navarro) |
UGA researchers draw first molecular map of peanut plant
By Brad Haire
bhaire@uga.edu
UGA researchers have completed the first comprehensive molecular map of the peanut plant. Like a roadmap, the result will give scientists the directions they need to develop better varieties for farmers and better products for consumers, experts say. The UGA map identifies plant genes and where they’re located.
“We have developed landmarks and determined how the landmarks are arranged with respect to one another (within the peanut plant),” says Andrew Paterson, a plant geneticist with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “The landmarks enable us to determine what important genes, instead of cities, are nearby.”
Mapping the genes of plants has revolutionized crop breeding over the past decade, Paterson says.
“Most major crops already have genetic maps, but the peanut was especially difficult,” says Paterson, who began looking into the peanut genome five years ago.
This map is the beginning of a framework for a physical map and sequence for the peanut genome.
“The molecular map is like putting mileposts along the highways. The physical map is like driving along the highways from milepost to milepost,” Paterson says. “The sequence is having total and immediate recall of everything that lies along every highway.”
That kind of information can help plant breeders develop better plants.
“One of the important uses of the map is to transfer desirable genes from wild relatives and exclude undesirable genes,” Paterson says. “This is badly needed in the peanut.”
John Beasley, a peanut agronomist with UGA’s Cooperative Extension Service, agrees. By understanding genes, scientists can efficiently develop plants with good traits, such as better quality and yields, he says.
The peanut comes from South America, where many peanut species are still growing wild.
“Some of the wild species have resistance or immunity to some of our pest problems,” Beasley says.
Once scientists know where the traits are located, technology could take those wild, useful traits and put them into a peanut a Georgia farmer can grow.
“Farmers would benefit because any improvement in yield and quality will provide an economic benefit to the grower,” Beasley says. “And a more drought-tolerant cultivar would require less water.”
Consumers will benefit, too, from a higher quality product.
Better oil quality and chemistry will add to peanuts’ reputation as a healthy food, Beasley says.
The peanut industry right now needs a peanut with resistance to aflatoxin. Aflatoxin occurs when a certain mold attacks the peanut plant. It can be dangerous if eaten.
“The entire industry, of which Georgia accounts for about 40 percent, would reap benefits from knowing there were cultivars with a much lower risk of aflatoxin development,” says Beasley, who only sees only one negative: the public’s perception that genetic manipulation is wrong.
“What many do not understand is that with genome mapping and identification, scientists can develop cultivars that would require less pesticide,” he says. “This would benefit the environment.”
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