The small, the large and the wild: the value of comparison in plant genomics

Studies of the model plant Arabidopsis are providing knowledge about the function of plant genes with an unprecedented clarity and quantity. A major challenge now is to apply this new information to the improvement of crop plants in a systematic manner. Sequence comparisons between Arabidopsis and rice can define potential functional relationships, and conserved gene order among cereals can then be used to ascribe functions to genes in many cereals.