Arabidopsis thaliana (also known as Thale Cress) is the model organism for plant biology and genetics. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its genome fully sequenced, and it also has a short life cycle. Hence, it is often grown in space to gather important scientific data. Arabidopsis has been grown on the International Space Station and first flowered in the 1980s aboard Soviet Salyut 7. Arabidopsis is critical to spaceflight plant biology research.
- small genome (5 chr, 27k genes)
- First plant genome sequenced
- small size
- rapid lifecycle (6 weeks)
Resources
TAIR (The Arabidopsis Information Resource) – this website is a database of Arabidopsis molecular biology data. Check it out if you want to know the function of a specific gene or find a T-DNA insertion line.
ThaleMine – use this bioinformatic tool to check flanking regions to design promoters and check for promoter lengths. It also has a visualization tool to see where the gene of interest is expressed in the plant.
Associated Literature
