Bridging the gene-to-function knowledge gap through functional genomics

Abstract

The explosion of genomics data has led to a significant knowledge gap, with thousands of genes identified having no known function. The following chapter describes the available forward and reverse genetics strategies, which can assist researchers in assigning functions to novel genes. Details of the available resources for a number of model and crop species are provided. In addition, protocols are presented for utilising T-DNA tagged populations to identify genes underlying novel phenotypes and to assist with functional characterisation of target genes. © 2009 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.