Scientists Complete First Gene Map of Plant
December 13, 2000 3:38 pm EST

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said on Wednesday they have finished the first genetic map of a plant in a groundbreaking achievement that could herald a new green revolution.

The tiny flowering weed Arabidopsis thaliana, or Thale cress, may not look like much but the sequencing of its genome, all its nearly 26,000 genes, provides the green chapter in the book of life and a blueprint for a greater understanding of all plants.

Scientists said knowing how its genes function and what they do will lead to hardier, more nutritious, higher yielding crops, better tasting and longer-lasting food and new insights into human diseases and how to treat them.

"Genome sequencing changes the way we do biology. From this point onwards plant science will never be the same again and genetics will never be the same again," Professor Mike Bevan, of the John Innes Centre plant research center in England, told a news conference.

Along with the human genome and the genetic maps of yeast, the nematode worm, fruitfly and several bacteria, Arabidopsis is a model organism that researchers say will increase scientific knowledge of ourselves and the world we live in.

FOUR-YEAR INTERNATIONAL EFFORT

Up to 300 scientists in Europe, the United States and Japan worked on the publicly funded Arabidopsis Genome Initiative that cost about $60 million.

The sequencing of the final three chromosomes, which is published in the latest edition of the science journal Nature, is the result of four years of research. The first two chromosomes were mapped a year ago.

With about 26,000 genes the Arabidopsis genome is very compact but it contains many of the same genes as crop plants such as wheat, rice and barley, as well as genes closely related to human genes linked to hereditary deafness, blindness and cancers.

A quarter of medicines are derived from plants so scientists believe Arabidopsis could clues about new remedies and treatments.

The Arabidopsis genome is twice as big as the fruitfly's but only a fraction of the size of the human genome which has 60,000 to 100,000 genes, 97 percent of which has been mapped.

But scientists believe it is equally, if not more important.

"If you take an ecosystem perspective it is definitely more important than the human genome," said Dr Ottoline Leyser, of the University of York, who worked on the project.

"If you want to improve ecosystems or human health you have to start with the plant genome," she added.

Like the human genome, all the data on Arabidopsis is freely available on the Internet.

POWERHOUSE OF THE PLANT WORLD

The beauty of Arabidopsis, a scraggly relative of the mustard plant and cabbage that is found along railways and in gardens and fields around the globe, it that it grows rapidly and completes its life cycle in six weeks.

Arabidopsis is also easy for scientists to clone and less expensive than bigger genomes to sequence.

It has been described as the powerhouse of the plant world and is a favorite of scientists because it is so easy to study. So far the function of only 10 percent of the plant's genes are known but it is already providing plant biologists with new information.

"This plant has a vast number of surprises for scientists," said Bevan. "Our analysis shows that there are about 100 genes in Arabidopsis that are very closely related to human disease genes. Diseases such as hereditary deafness, blindness and cancers."

In addition to providing lots of new genes to study, the plant genome could help scientists answer vexing question and quell public concern about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and how they interact with other plants in the environment.

"We have the possibility to eliminate unknowns," said Leyser.

"This is a win-win situation," she added. "We'll have more information about genes and how to use them."

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2000