Comparative analysis of 5,211 leaf ESTs of wild rice (Oryza minuta)

The expressed sequence tags (ESTs) presented in this report are the first transcriptomes of wild rice. A cDNA library was constructed from 4-week-old leaf samples of greenhouse-grown Oryza minuta. The 5,211 cDNA clones of O. minuta represent 3,401 unique sequences, consisting of 2,787 singletons and 614 assembled sequences. Database comparisons of the cDNAs in GenBank's non-redundant databases using BLAST revealed that 4,957 of the 5,211 cDNAs (95.1%) showed a high degree of sequence homology to genes from other organisms. Most of the transcripts identified were genes related to metabolism, energy, protein biosynthesis and subcellular localization. The metabolism and energy categories of the O. minuta ESTs showed a considerably higher gene expression level than those of O. sativa ESTs. These data and genes can be utilized in rice breeding.