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David W. Meinke, J. Michael Cherry,* Caroline Dean, Steven D. Rounsley, Maarten Koornneef
REVIEW
Arabidopsis thaliana is a small plant in the mustard family that has become the model system of choice for research in plant biology. Significant advances in understanding plant growth and development have been made by focusing on the molecular genetics of this simple angiosperm. The 120-megabase genome of Arabidopsis is organized into five chromosomes and contains an estimated 20,000 genes. More than 30 megabases of annotated genomic sequence has already been deposited in GenBank by a consortium of laboratories in Europe, Japan, and the United States. The entire genome is scheduled to be sequenced by the end of the year 2000. Reaching this milestone should enhance the value of Arabidopsis as a model for plant biology and the analysis of complex organisms in general.
Arabidopsis thaliana has recently become the organism of choice for a wide range of studies in plant sciences (1). The current visibility of Arabidopsis research reflects the growing realization among biologists that this simple angiosperm can serve as a convenient model not only for plant biology but also for addressing fundamental questions of biological structure and function common to all eukaryotes. While genome projects have documented the extent to which all eukaryotic organisms share a common genetic ancestry, research with Arabidopsis has clarified the important role that analysis of plant genomes can play in understanding basic principles of biology relevant to a variety of species, including humans. The emergence of a large, multinational research community devoted to the complete analysis of a single plant represents a dramatic paradigm shift for plant biology. Traditionally, advances in our understanding of plant structure and function were built on research with a wide range of species, particularly those relevant to agriculture. Although an impressive amount of information was collected with this approach, advances in many disciplines were limited by scattered community resources, duplication of effort, and limited funding. Several plants were recognized as model genetic systems, including maize, tomato, pea, rice, barley, petunia, and snapdragon, but research biologists failed to reach a consensus on which species was most suitable for studying processes common to all plants. As a result, our understanding of fundamental aspects of plant growth and...