On October 21, 2019, the JAAS team leading by Dr. Zhao Han from Institute of Germplasm Resources and Biotechnology, and the team of Dr. Song Rentao from China Agricultural University and Shanghai University jointly published "A sequence-indexed Mutator insertional library for maize functional genomics" in the Plant Physiology(Hyperlink：http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/early/2019/10/21/pp.19.00894.). The study reports the construction of the ChinaMu mutation library, the world’s largest sequence-indexed insertional library in maize, which provides an important resource for functional genomics study in maize.

    In the study, a Mu insertional library named ChinaMu was created and sequence-indexed, consisting of more than 20,000 F2 Mu lines, by crossing pollen of a Mu-starter line to the B73 inbred line. The Mu flanking sequences from 2,581 F2 Mu lines were isolated and sequenced using a Mu-tag enrichment approach coupled with high-throughput sequencing. In total, 66,565 high-quality insertion sites were identified, tagging 20,244 (45.7%) of the annotated genes in the maize genome. Together with the UniformMu library, about 52.2% of the annotated maize genes are now tagged.

    To facilitate functional genomics study in the maize community, the dataset and seed collections generated in this study are publicly available at http://chinamu.jaas.ac.cn/Default.aspx. Through the search tool in the ChinaMu, researchers can easily find and obtain the insertion site information of the corresponding gene. All requested materials will be distributed at the end of this year.

    The paper was jointly authored by Dr. Zhou Ling from Institute of Germplasm Resources and Biotechnology of JAAS, Ph.D. candidate Liang Lei and Li Nianzhen from China Agricultural University, and Dr. Tang Yuanping from Shanghai University. This work was partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China and Jiangsu Agriculture Science and Technology Innovation Fund.

 The article is available on the Plant Physiology website at  http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/early/2019/10/21/pp.19.00894.