ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA - A MODEL-PLANT FOR GENOME ANALYSIS

Arabidopsis thaliana is a small plant in the mustard family that has b ecome the model system of choice for research in plant biology. Signif icant advances in understanding plant growth and development have been made by focusing on the molecular genetics of this simple angiosperm, The 120-megabase genome of Arabidopsis is organized into five chromos omes and contains an estimated 20,000 genes. More than 30 megabases of annotated genomic sequence has already been deposited in GenBank by a consortium of laboratories in Europe, Japan, and the United States. T he entire genome is scheduled to be sequenced by the end of the year 2 000. Reaching this milestone should enhance the value of Arabidopsis a s a model for plant biology and the analysis of complex organisms in g eneral.