Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Workshop: Barley
            

BARLEY MUTANTS: YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

¹ Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-6420 USA

Mutation and mutants are the essential elements for studying genetics. Radiation induced mutations were first reported in 1927 by H. J. Muller in Drosophila and soon after in higher plants, including barley. Since that time, barley has been a favorite organism for testing a multitude of physical and chemical agents for their mutagenic effects. This work resulted in the accumulation of large mutant collections in many of the laboratories involved in this work. These mutant collections provide a rich resource for geneticists today to help in gene function analyses. Unfortunately this work peaked in the 1960s before the age of molecular genetics and even today we do not have a comprehensive picture of the DNA changes induced in plants by most of the mutagens used. More recent studies show that sodium azide is a potent base substitution mutagen and fast neutrons are believed to favor deletion mutations. Consequently fast neutrons have been used to induce mutants in the hopes of facilitating gene identification. In the age of genomics, tagging genes with transposons and microarray analysis appear to provide the best hope for gene identification. To date transposon mutagenesis systems are not generally available in barley. We eagerly await the time when they will become available.