Bouché N, Bouchez D
INRA, Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire, Route de Saint Cyr, 78026, Versailles, France.
Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2001 Apr;4(2):111-7. doi: 10.1016/s1369-5266(00)00145-x.
Gene knockout is considered to be a major component of the functional genomics toolbox, and is aimed at revealing the function of genes discovered through large-scale sequencing programs. In the past few years, several Arabidopsis populations mutagenized with insertion elements, such as the T-DNA of Agrobacterium or transposons, have been produced. These large populations are routinely screened for insertions into specific genes, allowing mass-isolation of knockout lines. Although many Arabidopsis knockouts have already been obtained, few of them have been reported to present informative phenotypes that provide a direct clue to gene function. Although functional redundancy explains the lack of phenotypical alterations in some cases, it also appears that many mutations are conditional and/or do not alter plant morphology even in the presence of severe physiological defects. Consequently, gene knockout per se is not sufficient to assess gene function and must be integrated into a more global approach for determining biological functions.
基因敲除被认为是功能基因组学工具箱的一个主要组成部分，旨在揭示通过大规模测序计划发现的基因的功能。在过去几年中，已经产生了几个用插入元件诱变的拟南芥群体，如农杆菌的T-DNA或转座子。这些大群体通常被筛选以寻找插入特定基因的情况，从而能够大规模分离敲除品系。虽然已经获得了许多拟南芥敲除品系，但据报道其中很少有呈现出能为基因功能提供直接线索的信息丰富的表型。虽然功能冗余在某些情况下解释了缺乏表型改变的原因，但似乎许多突变是条件性的，并且/或者即使存在严重的生理缺陷也不会改变植物形态。因此，基因敲除本身不足以评估基因功能，必须将其整合到一种更全面的方法中以确定生物学功能。
