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Education
Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis)
Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) is perhaps better known to those outside of science as mouseear cress. This common weed is native to Africa, Asia and Europe. However, it has become naturalized around the world and has adapted to survive in many different environments. As a member of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), Arabidopsis is related to many common food crops including cabbage, broccoli, radish and cauliflower.
Why should we care about a weed?
You may be asking yourself why scientists care so much about a weed that can be found almost everywhere. Aren’t there more important plants to study? While Arabidopsis in and of itself does not have any economic value, it serves as an important model system for plant science research.
What is a model system?
A model system is a relatively simple organism that scientists can study and apply what they learn to more complex organisms and systems. Other examples of model systems include mice (used for medical research), fruit flies (used for genetics research), and pig hearts (used for cardiac research). Because Arabidopsis is related to a variety of crops, many researchers study Arabidopsis in order to better understand agriculturally important crop species.
Why does Arabidopsis make a good model system for plant research?
- Arabidopsis is small. It doesn’t take a lot of space to grow a lot of Arabidopsis plants.
- Arabidopsis has a fast lifecycle. It usually takes between 6-8 weeks for the complete lifecycle. That means you can grow many generations of Arabidopsis in a relatively short period of time.
- Arabidopsis is easy to grow. Most strains of Arabidopsis don’t require complicated growing condition. Give them a bit of food (fertilizer), some light, enough water and a warm environment and they will be happy.
- Arabidopsis has a small genome that has been completely sequenced and it is easy to mutate. This makes it an ideal subject for a variety of genetic investigations.
What else can you do with Arabidopsis?
Teach! Teachers around from world use Arabidopsis to demonstrate a variety of science concepts. With Arabidopsis, students can observe a complete lifecycle in eight weeks, learn about plant anatomy and development, explore inheritance, see variation within a species, observe adaptation to environmental conditions and design simple experiments using the scientific method.
Want to know more? Check out the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center’s education website at https://abrc.osu.edu/educators. There you can learn more about Arabidopsis, download ready-to-teach lab modules and order seeds (free for K-12 teachers!).
Terms:
Arabidopsis – Arabidopsis thaliana, a weedy plant belonging to the mustard family that is used as a model system in plant science research. Common name: Mouseear cress.
DNA – Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA is the molecule that contains all of an organism’s genetic information.
Genotype – The genetic makeup of an individual. Genotype can refer to a single gene or to an individual’s entire genome.
Genome – The complete DNA of an individual.
Germination testing – The process of placing a known number of seeds on moist filter paper in a Petri dish, allowing them to grow, then counting the number of seeds that germinate to determine the germination rate of a particular seed strain.
Phenotype – The physical characteristics that an individual displays. An individual’s phenotype is directly influenced by its genotype, as well as by other factors such as environment.
Mutation – A change in the DNA of an organism
Sequence – The process of analyzing and identifying all of the genes in an organism’s genome
Strain – A unique set of seeds that are genetically different from other seeds in the same species. Also called a seed line, stock or variety.