Arabidopsis, the botanical Drosophila: from mouse cress to model organism.
The small flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana is the best-studied model organism in plant biology. More resources are allocated to research on this little weed than to the study of well-known favourites such as worms, fruit flies and mice. Yet, up to the early 1980s plant biologists had every good reason to ignore Arabidopsis: neither did it seem to possess the characteristics of a good model organism, nor did it have any agricultural promise. The sudden prestige acquired by Arabidopsis research thus constitutes a remarkable historical puzzle. What made the mouse cress into the most successful model organism to date?
Leonelli
Sabina
S
Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. sabinaleo@hotmail.com
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000266:history; D001901:Botany / Q000266:history; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000266:history*; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D018745:Genome, Plant; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom