杨树--林木基因组学研究的模式物种

林木植物是大多数生态系统中的主要生命形式，在所有陆地生态系统中具有最大的生物量和生物生产力，因此它具有重要的经济及生态价值。林木植物特有的多年生习性使其生物学研究相对困难，因此需要寻找一种适用于遗传学及分子生物学方法做精细分析的模式植物。杨属（Populus）植物作为林业研究的模式植物，具有优良的实验特性：容易进行种间杂交和无性繁殖；生长迅速，并已建立完善的遗传转化系统；基因组相对较小，约450～550Mbp；易于进行遗传研究；适应性强，生长速度快，丰产性强。自2002年起，美国能源部与多家研究机构正式启动了杨属植物基因组计划，目前已接近完成。本文综述了模式植物杨树及其基因组学的研究进展。

Poplar as a Model for Forest Tree in Genome Research

Forest trees have tremendous economic and ecological value, as well as unique biological properties of basic scientific interest. The inherent difficulties of experimenting on very large long-lived organisms motivates the development of a model research system for forest trees. Populus has several advantages as a model system, including rapid growth, prolific sexual reproduction, ease of cloning, small genome, facile transgenesis, and tight coupling between physiological traits and biomass productivity. The imminent release of the genome sequence is taking Populus genomics one large step further by providing a catalog of all genes and, most importantly, their regulatory environments. A combination of genetics and physiology is being used to understand the detailed mechanisms of forest tree growth and development. This paper summarizes the progress in genomics research of Populus.