The small crucifer, Arabidopsis thaliana, has become the most widely used experimental model planet system used in research laboratories. Its small size and rapid growth cycle combined with a small, diploid genome with few repetitive elements make it an ideal model system for studying many aspects of plant biology. Since 1990, preparative work has been underway to develop the resources needed to study its genome. In 1996, TIGR was one of the three US groups funded to initiate genome sequencing on Arabidopsis. Their initial sequencing efforts have concentrated on chromosome 2 and have generated over 3.3Mb of finished annotated sequence containing over 750 genes, a further 4.5 mb of sequencing clones in progress, and have produced a large number of BAC end sequences used for the selection of sequencing clones. TIGR has also led the discussion on the importance of annotation to this project and developed guidelines for a more uniform annotation format for Arabidopsis genomic sequences. It is planned in this project to increase the sequencing capacity to approximately 12 Mb per year and use this capacity to complete the sequencing of chromosome 2, and to sequence in other regions of the genome in coordination with the other sequencing groups. In addition to the continued genomic sequencing, TIGR proposes to generate 5,000 sequence fragments from Landsberg erecta for use in identifying polymorphisms and therefore markers for fine mapping mutations. Finally, to address the variation in annotation standards currently facing the Arabidopsis community and the problem of outdated annotation due to rapid database changes, TIGR will establish an annotation resource for the entire Arabidopsis genome. This resource will update annotation for the entire genome, presenting it in a uniform and informative manner. The data format will be developed in collaboration with the Arabidopsis database, AtDB, so that the results can be linked to the wealth of non-sequence data used by the research community. The increase in sequencing capacity combined with the establishment of these two resources will further accelerate our understanding of Arabidopsis thaliana and therefore plant biology in general.
