title: Phenotyping of Arabidopsis mutants for developmental effects of gene deletions.
abstract: With the completion of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome sequencing project the next major challenge is the assignment of biological functions to the more than 25,000 genes. Reverse genetics is a powerful tool to elucidate gene function in Arabidopsis. Increasingly sophisticated genetic approaches are being developed for reverse genetics with the long-term goal of understanding how the coordinated activity of all proteins rises to a complex organism. Identification of a biological function for each gene is often doomed to fail as many loss- or gain-of-function lines exhibit no obvious phenotypes under normal propagation conditions . Here we provide an overview on how to phenotype plants during their development. This phenotypic streamlined analysis is based on a series of defined growth stages (germination, seedling, vegetative, and reproductive stages), which can be used for the profiling of mutants.
authors.affiliation: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Department für Biologie I, Lehrstuhl für Botanik, München, Germany.
authors.forename: Cordelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bolle
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D017353:Gene Deletion; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D010641:Phenotype; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism