Italian mutant collections of Medicago truncatula

A functional genomic initiative was undertaken in Italy for Medicago truncatula supported by the Italian Ministry of University: Funds for basic Research (MIUR/FIRB). We intended to produce tools in order to unlock the genetic control of traits of agronomic relevance for Medicago. Three different mutagenesis strategies were approached: transposon tagging, activation tagging and TILLING. All the three collections proved efficient in isolating mutants of interest for characters such as plant architecture, content of secondary compounds etc. We envisage the integration of our collections into those being produced in both Europe and US with the goal of creating a functional genomic resource of high quality as those available for Arabidopsis and rice. (author)