Exploiting EST databases for the development and characterisation of 3425 gene-tagged CISP markers in biofuel crop sugarcane and their transferability in cereals and orphan tropical grasses

摘要

BackgroundSugarcane is an important cash crop, providing 70% of the global raw sugar as well as raw material for biofuel production. Genetic analysis is hindered in sugarcane because of its large and complex polyploid genome and lack of sufficiently informative gene-tagged markers. Modern genomics has produced large amount of ESTs, which can be exploited to develop molecular markers based on comparative analysis with EST datasets of related crops and whole rice genome sequence, and accentuate their cross-technical functionality in orphan crops like tropical grasses.