An SSR-based genetic linkage map of the model grass Brachypodium distachyon.

The grass species Brachypodium distachyon (hereafter, Brachypodium) has been adopted as a model system for grasses. Here, we describe the development of a genetic linkage map of Brachypodium. The genetic linkage map was developed with an F2 population from a cross between the diploid Brachypodium lines Bd3-1 and Bd21. The map was populated with polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from Brachypodium expressed sequence tag (EST) and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) end sequences and conserved orthologous sequence (COS) markers from other grass species. The map is 1386 cM in length and consists of 139 marker loci distributed across 20 linkage groups. Five of the linkage groups exceed 100 cM in length, with the largest being 231 cM long. Assessment of colinearity between the Brachypodium linkage map and the rice genome sequence revealed significant regions of macrosynteny between the two genomes, as well as rearrangements similar to those reported in other grass comparative structural genomics studies. The Brachypodium genetic linkage map described here will serve as a new tool to pursue a range of molecular genetic analyses and other applications in this new model plant system.