RIKEN BioResource Center to provide seeds of model cereal plant

Seeds of the model cereal plant Brachypodium distachyon are now available at the RIKEN BioResource Center (BRC) in Japan, the second bioresource facility to provide seeds of this important model plant to the international scientific community.

Brachypodium distachyon belongs to the Poaceae family of monocot plants, which comprises temperate grasses and cereals and constitutes one of the most economically important plant families in the modern world.

Brachypodium distachyon is the first of the grass subfamily Pooideae to have a sequenced genome and it is widely used as a model plant for structural and functional genomic studies of grasses and cereals.

The seeds made available at BRC are of the Bd21 line, the standard line used in the sequencing project. In addition to the seeds, BRC will provide the scientific community with the technology needed for the cultivation and genetic alteration of Bd21.

"The BRC Brachypodium distachyon seed bank is the first of the kind in Asia. Our Bd21 seeds will be of particular interest to Asian scientists who can use it to generate transgenic plants and study monocot genes of agronomic interest." Explains Dr. Kobayashi, Head of the Experimental Plant Division.

The Bd21 Brachypodium distachyon line is an important addition to BRC's wide variety of bioresources, which already include human specimens, mice, the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, cell lines, genes and microorganisms.