Abstract

Genome sequencing, in combination with various computational and empirical approaches to sequence annotation, has made possible the identification of more than 30,000 genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Increasingly sophisticated genetic tools are being developed with the long-term goal of understanding how the coordinated activity of these genes gives rise to a complex organism. The combination of classical forward genetics with recently developed genome-wide, gene-indexed mutant collections is beginning to revolutionize the way in which gene functions are studied in plants. High-throughput screens using these mutant populations should provide a means to analyse plant gene functions — the phenome — on a genomic scale.

Author affiliations

1. North Carolina State University, Department of Genetics, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7614, USA.
2. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Plant Biology and Genomic Analysis Laboratories, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.

Correspondence to: Jose M. Alonso¹ Email: jmalonso@unity.ncsu.edu

Correspondence to: Joseph R. Ecker² Email: ecker@salk.edu

Published online 6 June 2006

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