Sequencing and functional validation of the JGI Brachypodium distachyon T-DNA collection

Due to a large and growing collection of genomic and experimental resources, Brachypodium distachyon has emerged as a powerful experimental model for the grasses. To add to these resources we sequenced 21165 T-DNA lines, 15569 of which were produced in this study. This increased the number of unique insertion sites in the T-DNA collection by 21078, bringing the overall total to 26112. Thirty-seven per cent (9754) of these insertion sites are within genes (including untranslated regions and introns) and 28% (7217) are within 500bp of a gene. Approximately 31% of the genes in the v.2.1 annotation have been tagged in this population. To demonstrate the utility of this collection, we phenotypically characterized six T-DNA lines with insertions in genes previously shown in other systems to be involved in cellulose biosynthesis, hemicellulose biosynthesis, secondary cell wall development, DNA damage repair, wax biosynthesis and chloroplast synthesis. In all cases, the phenotypes observed supported previous studies, demonstrating the utility of this collection for plant functional genomics. The Brachypodium T-DNA collection can be accessed at . http://jgi.doe.gov/our-science/science-programs/plant-genomics/brachypodium/brachypodium-t-dna-collection/.