Green Super Rice Project Selects Affymetrix Genotyping Platform for Developing New Rice Varieties

Affymetrix, Inc. has announced that it has been selected as the genotyping supplier by the Green Super Rice project coordinated by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciencesas part of their effort to develop, within the next three years, at least fifteen new rice varieties and deliver them to small-hold farmers in 16 countries in Africa and Asia, including China.

The Green Super Rice project is supported by the Chinese government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and aims to increase the income of resource-limited rice producers by the development and wide-adoption of GSR varieties and corresponding crop management technology. The long-term goal of the project is to benefit at least 20 million resource-limited rice farmers and to boost rice productivity by 20% in the target countries.

“We are excited and very happy to see that the efforts of the rice community in the Green Super Rice project coming to fruition. The Green Super Rice project is the world’s first rice project that is helping lead the scientific and breeding breakthroughs achieved by the efforts of the Chinese rice scientists to release elite cultivars suitable for growth in the target countries,” stated Professor Zhikang Li, project director of GSR, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. “We selected the Axiom genotyping platform fromAffymetrix due to the platform’s capability to screen millions of markers and accurately transfer them to smaller 384HT format arrays. Such precision and fidelity is not available on any other genotyping platform.”

The genotyping array, specifically designed for the Green Super Rice project, reflects an unprecedented effort by the rice community to leverage over 20 million SNP markers that were discovered in the 3000 Rice Genomes Project. This array uses a novel SNP genotyping marker screening process to screen more than 2 million selected rice SNP markers to identify relevant and valuable markers with high accuracy and precision.

A subset of the 2 million markers identified on the rice screening genotyping array will be transferred with 100 percent accuracy onto the Axiom 384HT-format to create the new array. This new Axiom GSR Rice Array, consisting of approximately 55,000 markers, will enable ultra high-throughput processing and analysis of 384 samples simultaneously and will be used to screen thousands of samples in a highly cost-effective manner.

“We are pleased to be able to support the goals of the Green Super Rice Project to help the rice community develop new varieties, address the needs of rice breeders, and to help achieve self-sustainable rice production and food security,” said Laurent Bellon, Ph.D., senior vice president and general manager, Genotyping Business Unit at Affymetrix. “The superior array design, bioinformatics and software capabilities available with the Axiom platform are playing a key role in advancing multiple agriculture projects around the world. Affymetrix is committed to meet the agricultural community’s needs with advanced technologies that are practical, easy to use, and cost effective.”

With Affymetrix’ advanced bioinformatics and innovative design strategies, Axiom genotyping array designs routinely support genome-wide genotyping applications and accurately call the genotypes of both diploid and polyploid species.