Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX) announced today a collaborative research agreement with the University of Delaware to characterize gene expression patterns in a large set of diverse tissues from the crop plant rice, using Lynx's Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing, or MPSS(TM) technology. This four-year, multi-million dollar study led by Dr. Blake Meyers at the University of Delaware is supported by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Through the grant, Lynx will receive payments for the genomics discovery services on the rice samples provided by Dr. Meyers.

Rice is important both as a crop plant that feeds much of the world's population and as a model for cereal crops of great economic importance in the United States. The recent availability of the genomic sequence for rice facilitates functional analysis and molecular studies of the rice genes. However, many of these genes are as yet defined only by computational and not experimental approaches. Computational gene predictions may not identify all RNA transcripts within the chromosomal sequence.

This project features the application of Lynx's MPSS(TM) technology to characterize the diversity and expression patterns of rice transcripts. Defining the patterns and levels of gene expression in the rice genome should advance researchers' understanding of rice molecular biology and genetic factors controlling important agronomical traits. This analysis of rice may have broad practical implications for the improvement of other economically important cereals, such as corn, wheat, sorghum and barley, because nearly all of their genes are likely to be present in rice as well. The MPSS(TM) data will be used to identify genes missed by computational approaches and will provide data that may validate many genes previously predicted but never confirmed experimentally.

These data will be made publicly available through a project webpage. This web site will include query and analysis tools to facilitate public use of the rice MPSS(TM) data and will display the abundance and chromosomal locations of rice MPSS(TM) signatures.

"Within the next two years, this set of MPSS(TM) data will sample more than 250 times the number of transcripts currently available for rice," said Dr. Blake Meyers, principal investigator on the study. "These data will deliver quantitative and qualitative expression information to plant scientists throughout the world, and will accelerate crop plant research on both specific traits and whole-genome analyses."

"We believe that this study will provide the most comprehensive and accurate body of expression data publicly available for a whole organism, plant or animal," said Dr. Thomas J. Vasicek, Vice President of Business Development at Lynx. "We anticipate that MPSS(TM) will provide valuable information for improvement of crop yield and nutritional value."

Lynx is a leader in the development and application of novel genomics analysis solutions that provide comprehensive and quantitative digital gene expression information important to modern systems biology research in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agricultural industries. These solutions are based on Megaclone(TM) and MPSS(TM), Lynx's unique and proprietary cloning and sequencing technologies.