International Rice Genome Sequencing Project

IRGSP is a consortium of publicly funded members from ten different countries that sequenced the genome of O. sativa ssp. japonica. The project began in 1998 and the first high-quality map-based draft sequence was released in December 2002. The consortium members are Japan, USA, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Thailand, France, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. The sequencing strategy was to organize BAC clones into contigs by FPC. These contigs were placed on a high-density genetic map. From this a minimum tiling path was chosen and the nucleotide sequence of these BACs was determined. PAC clones were used to fill in some gaps. The final sequence represents finished quality sequence that covers 95% of the 389 Mb genome.