Sterile Techniques in Arabidopsis

One of the many reasons for the popularity of Arabidopszs as an experimental system IS the ease with which mutant screens can be carried out on Petrt plates under sterile conditions. Petri plate screens have been successful for a number of reasons. First, large numbers of mutagenized seed can be easily scored for vartability, and secondly, plants in Petri plates can be grown constantly under completely defined condmons. These attributes open up the world of plant genetics to mutant screens similar to those described for micro-organisms For example, an Arubzdopm mutant insensitive to some particular compound such as a herbicide or growth regulator can be easily identified in a background of uniformly inhibited wild-type plants. The alternatives, spraying plants or n-rtgatmg so11 with an inhibitor, not only result m problems of uniform application, but also are complicated by evaporation and catabolism of the compound by other organisms. Aside from the ease of screening, Petri plate screens also have the advantage that retesting and genetic analysts of subsequent generations can be done under exactly the same condmons as the original screen.