About Arabidopsis thaliana
Arabidopsis thaliana is a small, fast-growing, flowering plant that is used as a model system in many areas of biology. What makes Arabidopsis such an amazing biological tool? Click on the link to find out more: [About Arabidopsis thaliana]
About T-DNA insertion mutant plant lines
Plant genetics utilizes a collection of ‘knockout’ mutant strains in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. Knockouts, carrying a tiny tagged segment of disruptive DNA (T-DNA) in one targeted gene, are already available for ~67% of the 27,000+ unique genes in this plant’s genome. Our goal is to collect fitness data for as many of these mutant strains as possible. Read more about the T-DNA insertion lines: [About T-DNA insertional lines] .
Phenotyping mutant lines
One of the goals of the unPAK project is to record phenotypes of Arabidopsis T-DNA single knockout mutants grown in many different environmental conditions. Multiple genes can be involved in a single phenotype and environmental conditions may alter how genes behave. Arabidopsis mutants can be experimentally grown under different environmental conditions to screen for environmental and genotypic interactions that may affect phenotypic traits.
Genotyping insertion lines
The SALK T-DNA mutant collection is a important and powerful tool used in plant genetic research. The goal of the unPAK project is to investigate the phenotypic effect of knocking out single genes from the Arabidopsis genome. As part of the unPAK project we are using a simple PCR-based procedure to ensure the lines we use have only a single disrupted gene.