Plant genomics

The rapidity with which genomic sequences of the model plant Arabidopsis th aliana and soon of rice are becoming available has strongly boosted plant m olecular biology research. Here, two main genomic fields will be discussed: the progress in different structural genome projects, such as mapping, seq uencing, genome organization and comparative genomics, and the so-called fu nctional genomics approaches to analyze the genome using such molecular too ls as transcript profiling, micro-arrays, and insertional mutagenesis. In a ddition a section on bioinformatics is included. (C) 1999 Federation of Eur opean Biochemical Societies.