a rich tilling resource for studying gene function in brassica rapa丰富的耕作在芸苔属植物拉伯资源为研究基因功能.pdfVIP

Stephenson et al. BMC Plant Biology 2010, 10:62 /1471-2229/10/62 METHODOLOGY ARTICLE Open Access A rich TILLING resource for studying gene function in Brassica rapa 1 2 1 1 3 3 Pauline Stephenson , David Baker , Thomas Girin , Amandine Perez , Stephen Amoah , Graham J King , Lars Østergaard1* Abstract Background: The Brassicaceae family includes the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana as well as a number of agronomically important species such as oilseed crops (in particular Brassica napus, B. juncea and B. rapa) and vegetables (eg. B. rapa and B. oleracea). Separated by only 10-20 million years, Brassica species and Arabidopsis thaliana are closely related, and it is expected that knowledge obtained relating to Arabidopsis growth and development can be translated into Brassi- cas for crop improvement. Moreover, certain aspects of plant development are sufficiently different between Bras- sica and Arabidopsis to warrant studies to be carried out directly in the crop species. However, mutating individual genes in the amphidiploid Brassicas such as B. napus and B. juncea may, on the other hand, not give rise to expected phenotypes as the genomes of these species can contain up to six orthologues per single-copy Arabi- dopsis gene. In order to elucidate and possibly exploit the function of redundant genes for oilseed rape crop improvement, it may therefore be more efficient to study the effects in one of the diploid Brassica species such as B. rapa. Moreover, the ongoing sequencing of the B. rapa genome makes this species a highly attractive model for Brassica research and genetic resource development. Results: Seeds from the diploid Brassica A genome species, B. rapa were treated with ethyl methane sul