Mutant Resources in Rice for Functional Genomics of the Grasses

Abstract

The International Rice Functional Genomics Consortium, combined with many national programs, set a goal to generate mutant resources toward discovering the function of all rice genes, primarily through reverse genetics approaches. This resource update describes the generation of over 200,000 insertion flanking sequence tags (FSTs), which tag two-thirds of the predicted protein-coding genes, with one-half of the protein-coding genes estimated to have knockout mutations. The insertion sequences comprise the endogenous Tos17 retrotransposon showing the highest insertion rate in exons, as well as engineered maize (Zea mays) Ds/dSpm transposons and Agrobacterium T-DNA, which function as enhancer trap (ET), gene trap (GT), or activation tags (ATs). In addition, chemical and physical mutagen-derived mutant populations have been developed that are available for TILLING and other high-throughput screens. The extensive number and variety of mutant resources described here for rice are very amenable for dissecting the functions of genes of interest in other grasses.

Citation

Plant Physiology (2009) 149 (1) 165-170 [doi:10.1104/pp.108.128918]

Mutant Resources in Rice for Functional Genomics of the Grasses

Published 1 January 2009