Structural analysis of a Lotus japonicus genome. III. Sequence features and mapping of sixty-two TAC clones which cover the 6.7 Mb regions of the genome.

A total of sixty-two clones were selected from a TAC (transformation-competent artificial chromosome) genomic library of the Lotus japonicus accession MG-20 based on the sequence information of expressed sequence tags (ESTs), cDNA and gene information, and their nucleotide sequences were determined. The length of the sequenced regions in this study is 6,682,189 bp, and the total length of the regions sequenced so far is 18,711,484 bp together with the nucleotide sequences of 121 TAC clones previously reported. By comparison with the sequences in protein and EST databases and analysis with computer programs for gene modeling, a total of 573 potential protein-coding genes with known or predicted functions, 91 gene segments and 272 pseudogenes were identified in the newly sequenced regions. Each of the sequenced clones was localized onto the linkage map of two accessions of L. japonicus, Gifu B-129 and Miyakojima MG-20, using simple sequence repeat length polymorphism (SSLP) or derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (dCAPS) markers generated based on the nucleotide sequences of the clones. The sequence data, gene information and mapping information are available through the World Wide Web at http://www.kazusa.or.jp/lotus/.