Meinke David W
Department of Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA.
New Phytol. 2020 Apr;226(2):306-325. doi: 10.1111/nph.16071. Epub 2019 Sep 18.
With the emergence of high-throughput methods in plant biology, the importance of long-term projects characterized by incremental advances involving multiple laboratories can sometimes be overlooked. Here, I highlight my 40-year effort to isolate and characterize the most common class of mutants encountered in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana): those defective in embryo development. I present an updated dataset of 510 EMBRYO-DEFECTIVE (EMB) genes identified throughout the Arabidopsis community; include important details on 2200 emb mutants and 241 pigment-defective embryo (pde) mutants analyzed in my laboratory; provide curated datasets with key features and publication links for each EMB gene identified; revisit past estimates of 500-1000 total EMB genes in Arabidopsis; document 83 double mutant combinations reported to disrupt embryo development; emphasize the importance of following established nomenclature guidelines and acknowledging allele history in research publications; and consider how best to extend community-based curation and screening efforts to approach saturation for this diverse class of mutants in the future. Continued advances in identifying EMB genes and characterizing their loss-of-function mutant alleles are needed to understand genotype-to-phenotype relationships in Arabidopsis on a broad scale, and to document the contributions of large numbers of essential genes to plant growth and development.
随着植物生物学高通量方法的出现，涉及多个实验室逐步推进的长期项目的重要性有时可能会被忽视。在此，我重点介绍我40年来为分离和鉴定拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）中最常见的一类突变体所做的努力：那些在胚胎发育方面存在缺陷的突变体。我展示了一个更新后的数据集，其中包含在整个拟南芥研究群体中鉴定出的510个胚胎缺陷（EMB）基因；包含了在我的实验室中分析的2200个emb突变体和241个色素缺陷胚胎（pde）突变体的重要细节；为每个鉴定出的EMB基因提供了具有关键特征和出版物链接的精选数据集；重新审视过去对拟南芥中总共500 - 1000个EMB基因的估计；记录了83个据报道会破坏胚胎发育的双突变体组合；强调了在研究出版物中遵循既定命名准则和承认等位基因历史的重要性；并思考如何最好地扩展基于群体的整理和筛选工作，以便在未来针对这类多样的突变体实现饱和筛选。持续推进EMB基因的鉴定及其功能丧失突变等位基因的表征，对于在广泛范围内理解拟南芥中的基因型 - 表型关系，以及记录大量必需基因对植物生长和发育的贡献是必要的。
