The impact of Arabidopsis research on plant biotechnology.

Arabidopsis thaliana, a small annual weed belonging to the mustard family, has become a widely used model in plant genetic research. It has a small genome, short life cycle, and is easy to mutagenize. Identification of genes based on phenotype alone, often a rather difficult part of molecular genetic research, is easiest in this plant. Laboratories working on the "model" plant Arabidopsis thaliana have created a network for sharing resources and ideas, so progress has been rapid. The importance of this plant to biotechnology is that genes isolated from Arabidopsis can be used to find their homologs in crop plants. Likewise, fundamental mechanisms can be understood in a model plant, and applied in crop plants.