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5 - Mosses as model organisms for developmental, cellular, and molecular biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Bernard Goffinet
By
Andrew C. Cuming
Edited by
A. Jonathan Shaw
Bernard Goffinet
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
A. Jonathan Shaw
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
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Summary

Introduction

There is a popular genre of politically incorrect jokes on the theme of “The World's Shortest Books” (of which the least offensive example is the title “Different Ways to Spell Bob”). Until recently, it would have been fair to surmise that the title of this chapter might have qualified with ease. Certainly, that would have been the view of many soi-disant “mainstream” plant developmental biologists, whose Arabidocentric view of the plant kingdom had tended to ignore any organism outside the angiosperms (and most within). Thankfully, this is no longer the case. It is now appreciated that an understanding of the evolution of gene function and of the roles of genes in the programming of developmental transitions (generically known as “Evo-Devo”) requires a comparative analysis of species representative of a wide range of diverse taxa. This has coincided with an explosion of molecular knowledge of at least one species of moss, Physcomitrella patens, the study of which is being facilitated by the complete sequencing of its genome. Consequently, we can expect to see a much greater interest in this species, and in mosses as a group of plants with their own unique features and fascination, developing within the wider plant science community. In this chapter I shall therefore concentrate on the recent discoveries made in Physcomitrella, and – more importantly – attempt to sketch out some of the challenges that lie ahead for researchers intending to make use of the burgeoning Physcomitrella resources.

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Chapter
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Bryophyte Biology , pp. 199 - 236
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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