2010 Soybean Genetics Committee Annual Meeting Minutes
22 February 2010
Sheraton Westport, St. Louis, MO
2009-10 Committee Members:
David Walker (Co-chair; USDA-ARS, Urbana, IL)
Bill Schapaugh (Co-chair; Kansas State Univ.)
David Sleper (Univ. of Missouri - Columbia)
David Hyten (USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD)
Gary Stacey (Univ. of Missouri - Columbia)
Jennifer Yates (Monsanto Corp., Galena, MD)
Pengyin Chen (Univ. of Arkansas)
Suk-Ha Lee (Seoul National Univ., Rep. of Korea)
Ricardo Abdelnoor (Embrapa, Londrina, Brazil)
David Grant (ex officio; USDA-ARS, Ames, IA)
Randy Nelson (ex officio, USDA-ARS, Urbana, IL)
Members present: David Walker, Pengyin Chen, David Grant, Jennifer Yates and Bill Schapaugh. Guests present: George Graef (Univ. of Nebraska), Istavan Rajcan (Univ. of Guelph, Canada) and Tri Vuong (Univ. of Missouri - Columbia).
David Walker called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.
The Soybean Genetics Committee (SGC) voted to elect Harish Gandhi (Syngenta Seeds, Slater, IA), George Graef (University of Nebraska), Istvan Rajcan (University of Guelph) and Kristin Bilyeu (USDA-ARS, Columbia, MO) to serve three year terms (2010 - 2013) on the Soybean Genetics Committee. Members completing their three year terms include: David Walker, David Sleper and Bill Schapaugh.
The committee elected David Hyten to serve as committee chair for 2010 - 11.
The committee voted to excuse Gary Stacey from SGC membership as per his request, but noted that he was willing to serve as a consultant on cases in which his molecular genetics expertise would be of value.
David Grant proposed that the committee approve the use of temporary gene names, but recommended changes to the exiting nomenclature rules. The advantages and disadvantages of using temporary names and the merits of alternative naming formats were discussed. The committee voted to approve the use of temporary gene names. The committee voted to designate temporary gene names by placing the gene name in brackets, followed by an underscore and then the number of the plant introduction or genotype in which the gene was identified.
An example of the new nomenclature format would be: [Rpp3]_PI506764 instead of Rpp?(Hyuuga). This indicates that the gene (or QTL) mapped to the same region as the Rpp3 gene, but that at present there is not sufficient data to determine whether it is allelic to Rpp3, or located at a tightly linked locus, possibly in the same gene family. Although PI numbers are more difficult for many people to remember than some cultivar or local names for accessions, the SGC encourages their use to avoid confusing two accessions with the same local name or two sublines of the same accession.
The committee discussed the request of Joe Polacco to rename several urease genes and provided recommendations to modify the proposed names. These include elimination of italic type in the name, and addition of a prefix consisting of a five-letter abbreviation of the genus and species of the source organism. In the case of soybean, for example, this would be 'Glyma'. In addition, the SGC recommends the use of upper case letters to indicate that an allele is dominant over another allele whose name begins with a lower case letter, rather than using upper and lower case letters to indicate taxonomic origins of genes, as proposed in the manuscript. After evaluating these suggestions the authors will be requested to resubmit the manuscript to the committee for consideration.
David Walker informed the committee that Henry Nguyen will step down as editor of the Soybean Genetics Newsletter on 1 March 2010. The committee suggested that David seek input from participants attending the Soybean Breeder's Workshop on the usefulness of continuing the newsletter. (This was done, and though no formal vote was taken, comments from the audience seemed to suggest that the Soybean Genetics Newsletter may no longer be essential to the soybean breeding/genetics community, particularly since so few reports had been submitted to it in recent years.)
With no further business, a motion to adjourn the meeting was approved at 8:02 p.m.