Arabidposis thaliana is commonly used as a model plant for several reasons: it has a small genome and plant size, a short generation time of 6 weeks, and the ability to easily generate many seeds and variants. It was one of the first plants to have its genome fully sequenced, furthering research on plant genetics, development, and evolution. Due to its small size and rapid life cycle, Arabidopsis thaliana provides an efficient system for studying basic plant processes that can be applied to economically important crops.

1. WHY ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA USED AS
A MODEL PLANT ???
MBB 601: Advances in plant molecular biology: 3+0
Presented By
Mr. Ekatpure Sachin
Department of Plant Biotechnology
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2. INTRODUCTION
 Arabidopsis thaliana also known as thale-cress or mouse-ear
cress or arabidopsis
 It is a member of Brassicaceae family
 Grows as weed in many parts of world
 For a complex multicellular eukaryote
 Except in role of model genetic organism it has no economic
use
 Number of variants were found called as ecotypes
 That are vary in size, shape, physiological characters and DNA
sequence 2

3. INTRODUCTION CONT…
 Identified in the 16th century
 1st mutant was reported in the year of 1873
by Alexander Braun, describing a double
flower phenotype
 In the year of 1980th the first genetic map of
Arabidopsis was prepared
 Now a days A. thaliana mostly used in the study of
genome structure, gene regulation, development
and evolution of plants
 Also it provides the important basic information
about plant genetics, that is applied to other
economically important plants 3

4. Advantages
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 Small genome
 Small plant size
 Short generation time i.e. 6
weeks
 Each plant can produce the
10,000 to 40,000 seeds
 It has ability to grow in the
laboratory
 Many variants are available
 Ability to self fertilization and out
cross

5. GENOME
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 It having five pairs of
chromosomes (2n=10)
 found 125 million base
pairs of DNA
 18 % genes were common
with human genome
 Average gene size is
about 200 bp
 1st plant has done
Complete genome were
sequenced in year of 2000

6. CONTRIBUTION IN THE GENETICS
 A. thaliana majorly involved in the study of-
 Plant Genome Organization
 Gene Regulation
 Genetics of plant development
 Genetic of flowering
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7. STATS
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 Taxonomy: Flowering
plant
 Angiosperm
 Size: 10 to 30 cm
 Habitat: Meadows/
Grassland
 Anatomy: Roots,
flowers, Simple Leaves,
One Primary
shoot

8. MAKING KNOCKOUT PLANTS
o It is easily susceptible to Agrobacterium which contain
Ti plasmids, the vehicles for T-DNA insertion
o Easy to establish many knockout lines within short
amount of time
o Basic life processes similar to those of more complex
crop plants such as corn, soybean, and wheat
o It can be assumed that the basic set of genes that
control these processes are the same, making findings
applicable to other species
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9. ARABIDOPSIS TRANSFORMATION BY FLORAL DIPPING
Dipping
Arabidopsis
plants are grown
in pots until they
start flowering.
Around 10/pot.
Plants are dipped
In Agrobacterium
Culture plus
sucrose Plus
surfactant for Up
to 3 minutes
Seeds
germinate done
medium
containing
selectable agent
e.g. Kanamycin
Plants grown for
a Few more
weeks to Allow
seed
development.
Seeds collected.
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10. EXPRESSION IN DIPPED PLANTS OF MARKERS FOR
PLANT GENE EXPRESSION PRESENT ON THE
T-DNA
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Agrobacterium enters the developing flower and the T-DNA
is introduced into the developing female gametophyte, and
transmitted Through the ovule to the next generation.

11. SUMMARY
 Arabidopsis is a useful model plant
 Simple genome
 Easy maintenance and space-efficient
 Applicable similarities with other plants
 It has a potential to help increase food production
quantity and quality to feed a growing world
population
 Due to these overall applications makes Arabidopsis
as a model plant organism 11

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