Database Description

We describe here the use of mineral nutrient and trace element profiling as a new tool to determine the biological significance of connections between a plants genome and its elemental-profile.

This Project is part of a larger National Science Foundation Funded project in Functional Genomics of Plant Transporters.(http://plantst.sdsc.edu.)

Using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) we have quantified Li, Na, Mg, P, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Cd and Pb in shoots of 8,300 fast neutron mutagenized Arabidopsis thaliana plants consisting of 4747 M2 plants (representing 2373 M1 parental lines) and 320 M3 families selected in the M2 generation for their modified elemental-profiles. All elemental-profile data for both the M2 and M3 plants is available in a searchable database format and seed from each M3 family will be available at the ABRC.

Mutagenized M2 plants were grown, analyzed (Experimental protocol) and putative mutants identified if they had one or more elements altered by less than or greater than two standard deviations from the plant tray average for that element (Figure 1) . As expected, statistically at least 95% of the data falls within two standard deviations of the average. Putative M2 mutants were allowed to self fertilize and the elemental-profile of the M3 progeny compared to the average and standard deviation of the wild type plants grown in the same tray Figure 2.

Searching the Database

Elemental-profile data normalized as number of standard deviations from the wild-type average (z-values) is searchable by both magnitude of change (e.g. 3 standard deviations away from the wild-type) or by mutant ID if known.A search on z-values produces a list of all M3 plants that satisfy the search criteria. By selecting a single plant from this list and clicking FETCH full elemental-profile data for all plants within the selected M3 family and M2 parent is displayed. By selecting the trayof interest (M3 families may have been grown in more than 1 plant tray) and clicking "submit" full elemental-profile data on the wild-type and frd3-2 positive control plants grown in the same tray as the M3 family will be displayed.