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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
January 25, 1999
Marcia Wood, (510) 559-6070, mwood@asrr.arsusda.gov
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An ambitious international venture to reveal the structure of genes in a
cousin of mustard is racing about four years ahead of schedule. This means
the first essentially complete catalog of all genes in a typical plant's
life cycle, from seed to flower to fruit, may be completed next year.
The project aims at hastening the discovery of important genes in crop
plants. But it relies on a botanical "lab rat" named Arabidopsis thaliana.
This flowering plant has much less genetic material than corn, tomatoes or
wheat. But information about its genes should apply to thousands of plants.
The scientists sleuthing the Arabidopsis genome originally estimated they
would finish by 2004, according to molecular biologist Athanasios Theologis
with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. He leads Arabidopsis research
at the Plant Gene Expression Center jointly operated in Albany, Calif., by
ARS and the University of California, Berkeley. ARS is the USDA's chief
scientific arm.
Theologis collaborates with scientists at Stanford University, Stanford,
Calif., and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. Researchers at
four other U.S. labs and in Asia and Europe are also scrutinizing
Arabidopsis' genetic material.
To date, the California and Pennsylvania scientists have identified the
structure of about 1,500 Arabidopsis genes. They have an estimated 6,000
left to decipher.
The researchers promptly post their new information on the Internet. That
databank also displays structural details of genes from other living things
including humans and mice. Scientists can scan the database for matches,
shortening the time it would take to uncover a gene's function.
Once plant biotechnologists discover the structure and function of a useful
gene--for example, one for disease resistance--they may move it into other
plants. An article in the January issue of Agricultural Research magazine
tells more. View it on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan99/dopsis0199.htm
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Scientific contact: Athanasios Theologis, ARS/University of California at
Berkeley Plant Gene Expression Center, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710,
phone (510) 559-5911, fax (510) 559-5678, theo@nature.berkeley.edu.
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