Brief History of the Selaginella genome project and taxonomy

From Purdue Genomics Database Facility

The Selaginella genome project began in 2002, when NSF offered a one-time competition to generate BAC libraries from organisms that were interesting from an evolutionary point of view. Selaginella was one of several algal, lower plant and basal angiosperm taxa selected.

After checking the genome sizes of several Selaginella species by cell flow cytometry, S. moellendorffii was found to have the smallest genome size of all species examined. A BAC library was made from clonally propagated S. moellendorffii plants, obtained from Plant Delights nursery. The PDF describing the BAC library (Wang et al. 2005) is available at www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2229/5/10. The genome size of Selmo is ~110Mbp based on the sequence data and Wang et al. (2005); 1N=10 (Takamiya, 1993).

In 2004, JGI chose to sequence the S. moellendorffii genome through their Community Sequencing Program. The portal to the sequence was released to the public in Dec 2007.

Classification of Selaginella, which is based on Bateman (1990) and Bill DiMichele at the Smithsonian:

It's an Embryophyte (which includes bryophytes) and within that group a Tracheophyte (the vascular plants)

Class Lycopsida

Order Selaginellales

Family Selaginellaceae

species: Selaginella moellendorffii Hieron.

The preferred nickname for this class of plants is lycopsid, although a less desireable but often used common name is lycophyte.

References:

Bateman, R.M. 1990. The relationship between formal and informal nomenclature and phylogeny in higher taxa: a pendant's perspective on the lycopsids. Taxon 39:624-629.

Takamiya, M. 1993. Comparative karyomorphology and interrelationships of Selaginella in Japan. J. Plant Res. 106:149-166.

Wang, W. et al. 2005. Construction of a bacterial artificial chromosome library from the spikemoss Selaginella moellendorffii: a new resource for plant comparative genomics. BMC Plant Biol. 14:10.