Abstract
There has been a tenfold increase in the number of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) studies published annually over the past 10 years.
Once QTLs have been identified; the next challenge is to identify the genes. Identifying the genes behind these QTLs has been
described as the greatest challenge for geneticists in this century. Three main approaches lead to the cloning of genes of interest.
Classical methods such as positional cloning and insertional mutagenesis have been used with success to identify major genes, i.e.
genes having a major effect on the phenotype. However, these methods are limited by genome size and/or by the lack of transposons
in the species being studied. For those species that have been sequenced, there should be no need to generate the large insert clones
because gene order is already known. All that is required is to locate a QTL on the sequence and then look for candidate genes (CG).
In the present study, 36 CG were detected for seed germination under anaerobic condition in rice.
