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The multinational life science company Monsanto this week announced the first complete sequencing of a crop plant genome — all 12 chromosomes of rice (Oryza sativa).

The company also promised that it would make the entire sequence available, with no strings attached, in the public domain, by donating it to the International Rice Genome Sequence Project (IRGSP), a Japanese-led consortium of ten publicly funded genome centres.

Takuji Sasaki, director of Japan's Rice Genome Research Program, the lead member of the consortium, told Nature that he applauded the Monsanto decision. He argued that the incorporation of Monsanto's database is an exemplary public–private sector collaboration, similar to the joint completion of the Drosophila genome by Celera Genomics and the publicly funded Drosophila Genome Project.

The rice genome, at 400 Mb, is some 37 times smaller than wheat, and six times smaller than maize. But identifying the position of genes in rice will help in finding similar genes in these crops. The public rice project, which was launched in 1998, is being led by Japan with $100 million through its Rice Genome Research Program. Ten million dollars is also being contributed each by China, the United States and India.

The US effort is publicly funded through the Institute for Genomic Research. Monsanto says that its data will be sent to IRGSP, and “as each segment of the sequence is completed, it will be placed in the public domain in accordance with existing IRGSP policy.”

The rice sequencing was carried out mainly by Leroy Hood at the University of Washington in Seattle, under contract for Monsanto. Sasaki says that the Monsanto sequence is of around 5X depth, and that many gaps remain. But merging the data with the 7X data from the public project should accelerate the completion of a ‘finished’ genome.

The IRGSP's initial target for completion was 2008 at a cost of $200 million, but in a bid to shorten this Japan has increased its support for rice genomics three-fold, ironically in response to the threat that Celera and other companies might get their first (see Nature 401, 102; 1999).