A Draft Sequence of the Rice Genome ( <i>Oryza sativa</i> L. ssp. <i>indica</i> )

TLDR

The rice genome was sequenced using whole‑genome shotgun sequencing. The draft indica rice genome is 466 Mb with 46,000–55,600 genes, 92 % functional coverage, 42 % repeats, and shows that 80.6 % of Arabidopsis genes have rice homologs while only 49.4 % of rice genes have Arabidopsis homologs, likely due to GC content gradients.

Abstract

We have produced a draft sequence of the rice genome for the most widely cultivated subspecies in China, Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica , by whole-genome shotgun sequencing. The genome was 466 megabases in size, with an estimated 46,022 to 55,615 genes. Functional coverage in the assembled sequences was 92.0%. About 42.2% of the genome was in exact 20-nucleotide oligomer repeats, and most of the transposons were in the intergenic regions between genes. Although 80.6% of predicted Arabidopsis thaliana genes had a homolog in rice, only 49.4% of predicted rice genes had a homolog in A. thaliana . The large proportion of rice genes with no recognizable homologs is due to a gradient in the GC content of rice coding sequences.