COMPARATIVE GENOME ANALYSIS BETWEEN SEVERAL TROPICAL GRASSES

The availability of molecular markers allowed comparing genetic maps b etween distinct taxa. Among the Poaceae (grasses) family, species as d ivergent as rice, wheat and maize show collinearity within wide region s along the whole genome. This opens the way for the integration of kn owledge across all grasses and the development of molecular tools of g eneral interest using the simple genome of rice. Many agronomically im portant tropical grasses belong to two major sub-families. Comparisons between maize, sorghum and sugarcane, three members of the Andropogon eae tribe, are briefly reviewed. One example of a particular genome re gion is used for extending the comparison to rice and illustrating var ious applications of comparative genome mapping.