ISOLATING PLANT GENES

The genetic transformation of most agriculturally important plant spec ies is now Possible. However, the application of this technology to ra tional plant-improvement is currently limited by a shortage of cloned genes for important traits. Recent technological advances in plant-gen e isolation and identification, such as map-based cloning, insertional mutagenesis and large-scale cDNA sequencing, have accelerated the rat e of gene isolation and significantly expanded the opportunities for g enetic engineering of crop plants.