Identification and functional annotation of genes for drought tolerance contributed to sorghum genome annotation update. Sorghum bicolor

Updating genome annotation is a dynamic process of finding and designating genes on the genome as additional information is gained. Since gene structure prediction is not just a one time complete endeavour to describe all the possible gene sets in the genome, a long term dynamic process of efforts requires for progressive update of genome annotation. To this end, experimental evidence is critically important. Here we use a combination of multiple source extrinsic experimental data to identify and characterize the previously non-annotated genes in the sorghum bicolor genome. Through combined evidence, we propose the addition of 210 new genes to the genome of which 69.5% are drought responsive and 105 are single exonic. We also present the update of 3275 previously identified genes and 3343 mRNAs and the inclusion of 59 novel exons, 2 novel mRNAs, 71 novel 5'UTRs and 3499 novel 3'UTRs which potentially contributed to the update of these genes. This study presents a unique approach that complements existing efforts in sorghum research and contributes greatly to further understanding sorghum genomics and comparative studies.