[Coral-List] Porites genome

[Craig Bingman]

I'm not sure that I understand why a coral that is primarily useful for
fossil/paleoclimate studies is the best choice for a genomics project.

Personally, I think that the community needs to figure out coral biology's
closest equivalent to a "lab rat" or "fruit fly"  You need to pick the
organism that is most ameniable to laboratory manipulations and studies on
living organisms.  Or you need to find a target organism that will provide
the most useful leads on the reagents needed to do field studies on mRNA's
or proteins isolated from specimens in the wild.

If no such reef-forming coral exists, then it is *possible* that the
community would be better served by picking another model cnidarian that
is more conducive to laboratory manipulation.  I'd personally be
disappointed if the genomics work was done on something other than a
reef-forming coral, but that needed to be said.

Craig Bingman
Department of Biochemistry
University of Wisconsin--Madison and
Center for Eukaryotic Structural Genomics
cbingman at biochem.wisc.edu
-- 
cbingman at panix.com


On Wed, 17 Sep 2003, Doug Fenner wrote:

> Porites has the advantage that it is an important reef builder in both the
> Caribbean and Pacific, and the third largest genus of corals.  Also, the
> huge massive Porites are the source of climate records.  Acropora is also a
> major reef builder in both Caribbean and Pacific.  It is also the largest
> coral genus with about 165 species known so far.  Montastrea is a major
> reef builder in the Caribbean, but in the Pacific has only a few small
> uncommon species.  Among the Porites, P. lobata is the most common of the
> big massives used for climate records, and is one of the most widespread of
> all corals.  P. lobata seems like one of the best choices.   -Doug
>
> Douglas Fenner
> Australian Institute of Marine Science
> PMB 3, Townsville MC
> QLD 4810
> Australia
>
>
> www.aims.gov.au
>
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