The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is an excellent model system for studies of photosynthesis, flagellar biogenesis and function, signal transduction, and other aspects of cell biology. The Chlamydomonas Genetics Center serves as the central repository to receive, catalogue, preserve and distribute wild type and mutant cultures of C. reinhardtii and other Chlamydomonas species in which extensive genetic analysis has been done, and as the resource center to disseminate information on this important model organism to the international scientific community. The Center also maintains and distributes molecular reagents useful for research on Chlamydomonas, including genomic and cDNA clones of Chlamydomonas nuclear, chloroplast and mitochondrial genes. Genomic and cDNA libraries will be added during the next proposed funding period. A comprehensive database accessible through the World Wide Web provides descriptions of all cultures in the collection, historical information and reference material on genetic loci and mutant alleles, genetic and molecular maps, DNA sequence data, an address directory, and an extensive bibliography. The Chlamydomonas Genetics Center web page [www.botany.duke.edu/chlamy/] coordinates the database, the bionet.chlamydomonas newsgroup, and on-line strain orders, and provides links to other sites on algal research, photosynthesis, and related topics.
