African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 2 (12), pp. 521-527, December 2003

ISSN 1684-5315  © 2003 Academic Journals

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Functional genomics in forage and turf - present status and future prospects

Yan Zhang and M.A. Rouf Mian*

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, 2510 Sam Noble Parkway, Ardmore, Oklahoma, 73401, USA.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: rmmian@noble.org. Phone 580-224-6840. Fax 580-224-6802.

Accepted 25 November 2003  

The recent advances in plant genomics have greatly influenced basic research in many agriculturally important crops. Along with the availability of complete genome information from the model grass species rice and the model legume species M. trucncatula, the functional genomics activities in other crop species will accelerate the genomics studies of forage and turf. Brachypodium distachyon was recently proposed as a new model plant for forage and turf grass genomics studies. The combination of bioinformatics and genomics will enhance our understanding of the molecular functions of forage and turf species. This review focuses on recent advances and applications of functional genomics for large-scale EST projects, global gene expression analyses, proteomics, and metabolic profiling, as well as the impact of functional genomics on improvement of forage and turf crops.

Key words: Functional genomics, forage and turf grasses, ESTs, microarray, proteomics, metabolomics, Medicago truncatula, legume.