Generalities
Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana), also known as Thale cress, is a model organism used in plant science for several years, and is representative of chlorophyllous and vascular higher plants (dicotyledonous angiosperms). A. thaliana‘s genome, determined in 2000, is one of the smallest among plants. It is widely used for genetic and molecular biology studies.
A. thaliana benefits for plant research are diverse: its small size allows it to be grown in large numbers, its development cycle is short and a plant can produce tens of thousands of seeds.
Reproduction
Reproduction period: All year round (spring in the wild).
Development Cycle: the whole cycle, from seed to seed, lasts three months.
All stages of development of A. thaliana are described here: http://www.arabidopsis.org/portals/education/growth.jsp
Hermaphrodite.
Reproduction : mainly self-fertilisation (self-pollination).
Instructions for A. thaliana cultivation : http://www.hort.purdue.edu/hort/facilities/greenhouse/
Tools
- Collections of independent insertion mutants
- Ecotype collections (exploration of genetic variability)
- Clones collections (cDNA, BAC, TER)
- Automated cultures and automatic phenotyping: possibility to cultivate in a standard way thousands of plants, to photograph these plants and to measure their weight, or photosynthetic activity for example
- Populations of recombinant lines (RIL) for QTL testing
- Various advanced functional exploration techniques (subcellular, hormonal, developmental markers, ...)
Databases
Genomic databases:
http://www.arabidopsis.org/
http://www.arabidopsis.org/portals/
http://arabidopsis.info/
Microarrays database:
http://arabidopsis.info/
Cis-Acting Regulatory Elements database:
http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be/webtools/plantcare/html/
Infrastructures
- Plateforme de phytotechnologie (PHYTOTEC)
- http://biam.cea.fr/drf/biam/Pages/plateformes/phytotec.aspx
- Centre CEA de Cadarache, St Paul lez Durance
- Centre de ressources Arabidopsis thaliana - Observatoire du Végétal IJPB Versailles (OV-IJPB)
- https://www6.inrae.fr/saclay-plant-sciences/Infrastructures/Ressources-biologiques/Centre-de-Ressources-Arabidopsis-thaliana
- Versailles
Experts
- Christian MEYER
- meyer@versailles.inra.fr
- INRA, Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin (IJPB), Versailles
Bibliography
- Articles
″Plant biologists fear for cress project″, Heidi Ledford, Nature, 2010
- Websites