An Italian functional genomic resource for Medicago truncatula.
BACKGROUND
Medicago truncatula is a model species for legumes. Its functional genomics have been considerably boosted in recent years due to initiatives based both in Europe and US. Collections of mutants are becoming increasingly available and this will help unravel the genetic control of important traits for many species of legumes.


RESULTS
Our report is on the production of three complementary mutant collections of the model species Medicago truncatula produced in Italy in the frame of a national genomic initiative. Well established strategies were used: Tnt1 mutagenesis, TILLING and activation tagging. Both forward and reverse genetics screenings proved the efficiency of the mutagenesis approaches adopted, enabling the isolation of interesting mutants which are in course of characterization. We anticipate that the reported collections will be complementary to the recently established functional genomics tools developed for Medicago truncatula both in Europe and in the United States.
Porceddu
Andrea
A
CNR Istituto di Genetica Vegetale Perugia, via Madonna Alta, 130 Perugia, Italy. sergio.arcioni@igv.cnr.it.
Panara
Francesco
F
Calderini
Ornella
O
Molinari
Lorna
L
Taviani
Paola
P
Lanfaloni
Luisa
L
Scotti
Carla
C
Carelli
Maria
M
Scaramelli
Laura
L
Bruschi
Gianluca
G
Cosson
Viviane
V
Ratet
Pascal
P
de Larembergue
Henri
H
Duc
Gerard
G
Piano
Efisio
E
Arcioni
Sergio
S