ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the principal tools of mutagenesis that are available are surveyed, especially with respect to A. thaliana, and new aspects of reverse genetics. From the isolation of mutants affected in one or another biological process, physiological and genetic studies determine the genetic architecture of these characters and often infer from them relevant physiological information. Insertion mutagenesis relies on the generation of collections, that is, of populations of independent plants, each of which carries one or several insertions of the mutagenic element. Numerous collections have been generated from insertion lines in tomato, maize, rice, petunia, snapdragon, and especially A. thaliana. Transposons were the first agents of insertional mutation used in maize and then in petunia and the snapdragon Antirrhinum. A gene trap construction makes it possible to identify a gene based on its expression. Insertion mutagenesis involves the insertion of an element of foreign deoxyribonucleic acid that will interrupt the gene and cause its inactivation.
