News release, April 17, 2000, effective immediately.
For media inquiries, contact Caroline Booth Lara, Communications Specialist, (580) 224-6379.
  email: cblara@noble.org

Noble Foundation, NCGR Release First Round of Medicago Truncatula ESTs

SANTA FE, N.M., April 17 - The National Center for Genome Resources and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation have released new EST (expressed sequence tag) data from a collaboration studying Medicago truncatula, a "model" legume used in genetic studies.

The organizations have released 14,634 expressed gene sequences. The new sequences, which nearly double the amount of publicly available M. truncatula EST data, are accessible through the Noble Foundation and NCGR Web sites and were released by GenBank today.

Scientists from NCGR and Noble are working together to identify novel expressed gene sequences; such EST data will be useful to researchers around the world. The data release is the first in a series expected over the next 18 months. Analysis of these EST data ultimately may lead to improvements in legume crops.

"We're excited about our results and our opportunity to contribute to the model legume scientific community," said Gregory May, Ph.D., project leader for Noble. "Genomics programs such as ours can generate information that Arabidopsis simply can't provide because M. truncatula, and legumes in general, have their own unique metabolic pathways and plant-microbe interactions that warrant further study."

The M. truncatula research community, including National Science Foundation projects and international groups such as those in France, will continue to contribute to the overall genomic research of the plant, making it a stronger model system. The Noble and NCGR scientists credited this community and teamwork within their organizations for the progress to date.

M. truncatula and its better-known relatives, alfalfa and soybean, are members of the legume family, one of the most important groups of plants. Legumes are a crucial source of protein for humans and forage food for animals. M. truncatula is closely related to alfalfa (M. sativa), and the results of the collaborative project will therefore be directly applicable to the improvement of one of the world's major forage crops. M. truncatula is a particularly good plant for study because, unlike alfalfa, it has a relatively small genome and is amenable to efficient genetic and molecular analysis.

The M. truncatula collaboration allows Noble to focus on data generation and NCGR to focus on structuring data analysis. Noble conducts extensive research in agricultural sciences, and NCGR's specialty is bioinformatics, which employs mathematics and computer science to analyze biological data.

Data and detail about the M. truncatula project are available at www.noble.org/medicago. Medicago sequences also are accessible through NCGR's Genome Sequence DataBase.

About NCGR
The National Center for Genome Resources (www.ncgr.org) is an independent, nonprofit life sciences research institute working at the interface of biology, computer science and mathematics (bioinformatics). By conducting and facilitating research the Center contributes to the improvement of global nutrition, health and environmental well-being.

About Noble Foundation
The Noble Foundation (www.noble.org) is a privately funded, nonprofit organization headquartered in Ardmore, Okla. The Foundation conducts agricultural and plant biology research; provides grants to numerous other charitable and educational organizations; and assists farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative programs.

###

Photographs available upon request.