Breaking news: Plants mutate right on target

摘要

For millennia, early human civilizations observed phenotypic changes in animals and plants and used these for domestication (1). In recent decades, scientists around the world induced random mutations, mainly in crop plants, to widen the mutation spectra to be used for extensive screening for varieties useful for agriculture and science (2). As mutagens, ethyl meth-anesulfonate, radiation, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated T-DNA transformation, and transposon mutagenesis have been used.