Palo Alto, California
June 22, 2009
Source:
The Carnegie Institution for
Science
A tiny plant with a long name (Arabidopsis
thaliana) helps researchers from over 120 countries learn
how to design new crops to help meet increasing demands for
food, biofuels, industrial materials, and new medicines. The
genes, proteins, and other traits of this fast-growing, tiny
mustard plant reside in a vast database dubbed the
Arabidopsis Information
Resource (TAIR), which has over 1.6 million page hits each
month. The TAIR group, headed by Dr. Eva Huala at Carnegie's
Department of Plant Biology, just released a new version of the
genome sequence of this model plant, which includes an array of
improvements and novel features that promise to accelerate this
critical research.
The new TAIR9 genome release contains detailed information on
all 33,518 genes that make up this tiny plant (including 114
newly discovered genes and 168 new pseudogenes), the proteins
produced by these genes, and extensive new experimental and
computationally predicted gene-function information.
Huala highlighted the advances: "We now have a ranking system
that provides a measure of our confidence that the structure of
a specific gene is correct; we've overhauled information on
pseudogenes—the evolutionary remnants that start out as copies
of conventional protein-coding genes and sometimes take on
interesting new functions; and we've made extensive updates to
the genome sequence based on new sequence data submitted to
TAIR."
In 2000, Arabidopsis was the first plant genome to be sequenced.
Partly due to the vast experimental data on gene function, which
TAIR has painstakingly extracted from the literature and
associated to the genes, and because of an extensive set of
molecular tools developed for this plant, the Arabidopsis genome
is the most advanced plant genome in the world and is the most
commonly used experimental plant today. Its small size and fast
growth allow large-scale experiments on drought and salt
tolerance, resistance to plant diseases, and other topics with a
direct impact on economic and food quality issues to be carried
out quickly and economically, and the results applied to
important crop species.
"TAIR is a crucial resource for plant sciences, but its impact
goes far beyond," remarked Dr. Wolf Frommer, director of
Carnegie's Department of Plant Biology. "TAIR9, as the 'green'
reference database, is crucial for understanding the function
and engineering of algae as well as crop plants. It is the basis
for all improvement of crop plants to meet the challenges of a
growing population as well as climate change."
The Arabidopsis
Information Resource (TAIR) collects information and
maintains a database of genetic and molecular biology data for
Arabidopsis thaliana, a widely used model plant. TAIR is
produced by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant
Biology in Palo Alto, CA. Funding is provided by the National
Science Foundation, (Grant No. DBI-9978564 and DBI-0417062).
The Carnegie Institution for
Science has been a pioneering force in basic scientific
research since 1902. It is a private, nonprofit organization
with six research departments throughout the U.S. Carnegie
scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology,
astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and
planetary science. |
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