Brassica project maintained by:

Martin Trick (PI & Developer/Curator)

John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1603 450 557, Fax: +44 (0) 1603 450 014

What is Brassica?
The Brassica genus comprises a large and diverse group of plant species which are economically very important throughout the world. Three diploid Brassica species (B. rapa, B. oleracea and B. nigra) have hybridised in different combinations to give rise to the three amphidiploid species (B. napus, B. juncea, and B. carinata). B. napus has been cultivated to form the oilseed rape (or canola) crop. Genetic diversity within the genus gives us an important source of variation that can be used to modify Brassica crop species by marker-assisted breeding methods. These methods require the production of genetic maps.

Brassica and UK CropNet
The Brassica genus is closely related to Arabidopsis thaliana, the model plant species for physical genome analysis and studies of growth and development. This is reflected by an average of 87% sequence identity of homologous genes and, crucially, an extensive conservation of marker order (or synteny) between large segments of the genomes. The John Innes Centre has made advances in the genetic mapping of Brassica species and comparative mapping with Arabidopsis. These genome relationships can be exploited for the cloning of genes controlling agronomically important traits in the crop plant.

As part of UK CropNet, we developed the BrassicaDB database, containing a variety of data for Brassica napus, Brassica rapa and Brassica oleracea. We also helped to develop new tools to allow reciprocal enquiries between BrassicaDB, AGR and other databases, with the navigation based on genome collinearities. In this way, bioinformatics can facilitate the exchange of resources between a model system and crop plants.

BrassicaDB