[1][2][3][4][5] These advantages have been extensively reviewed,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] as has its role in fundamental discoveries about the plant immune system,[22] natural variation,[23][24] root biology,[25] and other areas.
[29] George Rédei pioneered the use of A. thaliana for fundamental studies, mutagenizing plants with ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) and then screening them for auxotrophic defects[5] and writing an influential review in 1975.
[13] As molecular biology methods progressed, many investigators sought to focus community effort on a common model plant species such as petunia or tomato.
[13] The A. thaliana subcommunity espoused an ethos of freely sharing information and materials, and investigators were attracted by the perceived wide-open nature of plant molecular genetics relative to other fields that were better established and thus more "crowded" and competitive.
[13] Pioneering A. thaliana studies have used its natural filamentous pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis, the model plant-pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, and many other microbes.
[39][40] Recombinant inbred strain/line (RIL) populations were developed, notably from a cross of Columbia-0 × Lansberg erecta,[41] and used to map and clone a wide variety of quantitative trait loci.
[52] An international consortium began developing a physical map for A. thaliana in 1990, and DNA sequencing and assembly efforts were formalized in the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative (AGI) in 1996.
DNA microarray technology was rapidly adopted for A. thaliana research and led to the development of "atlases" of gene expression in different tissues and under different conditions.
Multiple groups identified mutations in the DICER-LIKE1 gene (encoding the main DICER protein controlling microRNA biogenesis in plants) that cause strong developmental defects.
[80] Well established investigators including Ronald W. Davis, Gerald Fink, and Frederick M. Ausubel adopted A. thaliana as a model in the 1980s, attracting interest.
[82] Thirteen prominent American A. thaliana geneticists were selected as investigators of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2011:[83][84] Philip Benfey, Dominique Bergmann, Simon Chan, Xuemei Chen, Jeff Dangl, Xinnian Dong, Joseph R. Ecker, Mark Estelle, Sheng Yang He, Robert A. Martienssen, Elliot Meyerowitz, Craig Pikaard, and Keiko Torii.
(Also selected were wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky and photosynthesis researcher Krishna Niyogi, who has extensively used A. thaliana along with the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
[85]) Prior to this, a handful of A. thaliana geneticists had become HHMI investigators: Joanne Chory (1997,[86] also awarded a 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences[87]), Daphne Preuss (2000-2006),[88] and Steve Jacobsen (2005).
[89] Caroline Dean was awarded many honors including the 2020 Wolf Prize in Agriculture for "pioneering discoveries in flowering time control and epigenetic basis of vernalization" made with A.
[25] Mapping of mutations from forward screens is increasingly done with direct genome sequencing, combined in some cases with bulked segregant analysis or backcrossing.