Unravelled: The Genetic Coding Of The Pea
Feb 25th, 2008 by Axel
The pea is an important crop species but it is unsuited to the Agrobacterium-based genetic modification techniques that are commonly used to work with crops. Researchers have now discovered the first high-throughput forward and reverse genetics tool for the pea (Pisum sativum) and it could have major benefits for crop breeders around the world.
Researchers from the INRA Plant Genomics Research Unit at Evry, and the INRA Grain Legumes Research Unit at Bretenières, both in France, developed a high-quality genetic reference collection of Pisum sativum mutants within the European Grain Legumes Integrated Project.
Abdelhafid Bendahmane and colleagues used plants from an early-flowering garden pea cultivar, Caméor, to create a mutant population, which they then systematically phenotyped for use in both forward and reverse genetics studies.
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