Isolation of Plant Genes by Transposon Tagging: from Concept to Realization

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the past decades, transposons have been a great help to bacterial, plant and animal geneticists. By either inserting in, or excising from, genes transposons have generated a vast number of mutants which have been invaluable in the study of gene function. Since a number of years transposons are also used as a tool for the isolation of genes: when the insertion of a transposon in or near a gene results in a recognizable phenotype, the transposon sequences can be used as a probe to clone the affected gene. This gene-isolation technique, nowadays referred to as transposon tagging, is particularly suitable for the cloning of those genes of which the encoded protein product is not known, and which therefore cannot be isolated by conventional methods. In this mini-review we describe the present state-of-the-art of transposon tagging in both homologous and heterologous plant species and discuss the future prospects of this particular gene isolation technique.