Physical Mapping of Rice Chromosomes 8 and 9 with YAC Clones

First efforts for physical mapping of rice chromosomes 8 and9 were carried out by ordering YAC clones of a rice genomicDNA library covering six genome equivalents with mapped DNAmarkers. A total of 79 and 74 markers from chromosomes 8 and9, respectively, were analyzed by YAC colony and Southern hybridizationusing RFLP markers of cDNA and genomic clones, and by polymerasechain reaction (PCR) screening using PCR-derived and sequence-taggedsite (STS) markers. As a result, 252 YAC clones were confirmedto contain the mapped DNA fragments on both chromosomes. A contigmap was constructed by ordering these YAC clones and about 53%and 43% genome coverage was obtained for chromosomes 8 and 9,respectively, assuming a YAC clone size of 350 kb and overlapbetween neighboring YACs of 50%. A continuous array of YAC cloneswith minimum overlap gave a total size of 18.9 Mb for chromosome8 and 15.6 Mb for chromosome 9, which are close to previousestimates. These contig maps may provide valuable informationthat can be useful in understanding chromosome structure andisolating specific genes by map-based cloning.