Nytech International

An international team of scientists from the United States, Taiwan, Thailand, China, South Korea, India, France, Britain, Brazil and Japan has completed decoding the rice genome. This accomplishment should lead to the development of new varieties of rice to meet different needs, including resistance to disease.

According to the Japanese team, some 370 million out of 390 million base pairs have now been mapped (95 percent of the genome), with an accuracy of 99.99 percent.

Analysts say they expect the research to contribute to the identification of useful genetic functions and lead to rapid improvement of crop varieties and an increase in food production. The results could also be used for production of new varieties of maize and wheat that have similar features in their genetic maps to rice.

The rice used for the research was a Japanese variety called Nippon Bare, in which the researchers found an estimated 40,000 genes.

Japan took the lead in deciphering the rice genome in 1991 and continued to play a central role after the international joint research team began decoding the genome in 1998, and was responsible for studying six of the 12 chromosomes found in rice, team members said.

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