GENES GALORE - A SUMMARY OF METHODS FOR ACCESSING RESULTS FROM LARGE-SCALE PARTIAL SEQUENCING OF ANONYMOUS ARABIDOPSIS CDNA CLONES

High-throughput automated partial sequencing of anonymous cDNA clones provides a method to survey the repertoire of expressed genes from an organism. Comparison of the coding capacity of these expressed sequenc e tags (ESTs) with the sequences in the public data bases results in a ssignment of putative function to a significant proportion of the ESTs . Thus, the more than 13,400 plant ESTs that are currently available p rovide a new resource that will facilitate progress in many areas of p lant biology. These opportunities are illustrated by a description of the results obtained from analysis of 1500 Arabidopsis ESTs from a cDN A library prepared from equal portions of poly(A(+)) mRNA from etiolat ed seedlings, roots, leaves, and flowering inflorescences. More than 9 00 different sequences were represented, 32% of which showed significa nt nucleotide or deduced amino acid sequence similarity to previously characterized genes or proteins from a wide range of organisms. At lea st 165 of the clones had significant deduced amino acid sequence homol ogy to proteins or gene products that have not been previously charact erized from higher plants. A summary of methods for accessing the info rmation and materials generated by the Arabidopsis cDNA sequencing pro jects is provided.