Progress and future directions of the rice genome sequencing effort Four years have elapsed since the launching of the project to decode the complete sequence of 430 million nucleotide base pairs covering the 12 rice chromosomes. Although it was initially a 10-year plan, the project has been accelerated due to the importance of the rice plant, the development of sequence analyzers and their improvement, and increasing public expectations in genomics. Contributing largely to the progress of the project are the research programs at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS) and the Institute of the Society for Techno-innovation of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (STAFF)-Japan's centers for rice genome sequencing-and the international rice genome sequencing project (undertaken by the international consortium), in which the Japanese research organizations are playing a key role. Establishment of the international consortium was agreed on at the International Plant Molecular Biology meeting held in Singapore in the autumn of 1997, and its first conference was held in Tsukuba in February 1998. Since then, all matters concerning the rice genome project have been decided at semi-annual meetings under the principles of international cooperation and immediate release of finished sequences to the public domain. There have been some changes in the participating countries, but it was decided at a meeting held in October last year that seven countries will continue to carry out sequencing. The international consortium is under the influence or pressure of outside parties: for example, the data supplied by Monsanto in 2000 helped the international group expedite sequencing work thereafter. The announcement by Syngenta last year that it had finished reading the entire sequence brought a sense of crisis to the entire consortium. In response, it held an extraordinary meeting in June last year to discuss a new strategy for accelerating the sequencing process. As a result of implementation of this new strategy, Japan had sequenced a total of 130 million base pairs of chromosomes 2, 6, 7 and 8, including a high quality draft sequence of chromosome 1, by the end of last year. With regard to the member countries of the international consortium, the United States has almost finished sequencing chromosome 10 and is now working on chromosomes 3 and 11. China has completed decoding 85 percent of chromosome 4 and Taiwan 25 percent of chromosome 5. France is sequencing chromosome 12. India and Korea are also doing their part, though on a smaller scale. As a result of all these efforts, the international consortium has read 240 million base pairs as of February this year, corresponding to nearly 56 percent of the rice genome, and have released the information in public databases. At the conference held in October last year, the international consortium agreed to Japan working on chromosome 9, giving Japan, already a key member of the group, even more responsibility for the project. The international consortium also agreed at the meeting to complete a high quality draft sequence of the whole rice genome by the end of 2002. Information on the rice genome complete sequence will act as a powerful tool for fully developing the unlimited potential of the rice plant in terms of its research and practical application. Expectations are growing that with the completion of the sequencing of the rice genome, research on rice will enter a new phase. (Takuji SASAKI, NIAS)