Financial Times FT.com

Science briefing: maize genome is decoded

By Clive Cookson

Published: November 19 2009 22:35 | Last updated: November 19 2009 22:35

The largest and most complex plant genome known to science – that of maize – has been decoded at last. Results of the $30m US-led project are published on Friday in the journals Science and PLoS Genetics.

Maize DNA contains 2.3bn chemical “letters”, including 32,000 genes. The human genome has 3bn letters and 20,000 genes.

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