Brassica crops are major contributors to healthy human diet and agricultural economies worldwide. They include oil crops such as oilseed rape (B. napus) and vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli (B. oleracea) and Chinese cabbage and turnip (B. rapa). The UK provides 5% of worldwide production of rapeseed, the oil from which has important nutritional properties and has potential as a biofuel or a renewable resource for industrial applications. Brassica vegetables are rich sources of vitamins, minerals and compounds that help protect against cancer.

A worldwide consortium has initiated the Brassica rapa Genome Sequencing Project, with ongoing activity in Korea, Australia, Germany, Canada, USA and elsewhere. A consortium comprising scientists drawn from three UK institutions with major programmes in Brassica research, together with the Beijing Genomics Institute and Huazhong Agricultural University in China, and the Institute for Genomics Research in the USA will work together to:(1) Advance the multinational Brassica rapa Genome Sequencing Project (BrGSP) by sequencing ca. 700 overlapping BAC clones representing the gene space of chromosomes R1 and R8. (2) Enable transitions to the oilseed rape genome by end sequencing 73,728 Brassica napus BAC clones. (3) Rapidly deliver into the public domain the sequences generated by the consortium, retaining no IP. (4) Rapidly deliver into the public domain an automated annotation of all sequences produced worldwide within the BrGSP. (5) Establish bioinformatic resources to provide added value to UK Brassica research and stakeholder communities, including a database system with displays tailored to enhance the ability of the various user communities to exploit the sequence data for research and the improvement of the Brassica crops of importance in the UK. (6) Analyse the sequence data generated to identify and characterise the novel features of hexaploid genome structure and evolution.