The Versailles Arabidopsis Stock Center (VASC) collects, produces and characterizes Arabidopsis thaliana plants with different genetic characteristics, for example natural variants or mutants. These resources are both distributed to the scientific community and used in VASC research projects.
Available Resources
The VASC has created large collections of mutants, which are used to investigate the functions of the genes. It also offers numerous worldwide natural variants, as well as plants resulting from crosses between these variants, which allow the analysis of the impact of natural diversity, particularly on complex traits of plant life such as growth, development, reproduction, stress tolerance, etc.
The VASC was certified IBISA in 2023 and is part of the 'RARe' (Agronomic Resources for Research) infrastructure. It is also committed to a Quality Management System based on the ISO9001:2015 standard. The ISO9001:2015 certification process is in progress.
Biological Questions
An essential question in biology is to understand the origin of speciation. We are interested in hybrid incompatibilities observed in the VASC collections, a phenomenon in which the fitness of hybrids is much lower than that of the parents. These hybrid incompatibilities create reproductive barriers and can therefore lead to the formation of different species. Given the amount of genetic resources available, Arabidopsis thaliana provides an excellent model to explore the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind such incompatibilities.
In addition, our resources are essential to many other IJPB teams.
For example, the FTA team has identified, by screening the collection of HEM mutant lines, plants affected in the formation of hydathodes, small organs located at the leaf edge through which guttation occurs, which are an entry site for certain pathogens. This team is also looking for the genetic determinants of an original mechanism of direct regeneration of buds from roots, related to suckering. Numerous natural accessions have been studied to explore the variability of the phenomenon, and several QTL responsible for regeneration have been identified in RIL populations.
A project of the SAS team aims at identifying the factors involved in allelopathic processes by an association genetics approach (GWAS) using populations of natural accessions, but also resources useful for the validation of the identified candidate regions (F2 populations, HIF, mutants).
The VASC has created large collections of mutants, which are used to investigate the functions of the genes. It also offers numerous worldwide natural variants, as well as plants resulting from crosses between these variants, which allow the analysis of the impact of natural diversity, particularly on complex traits of plant life such as growth, development, reproduction, stress tolerance, etc.
The VASC was certified IBISA in 2023 and is part of the 'RARe' (Agronomic Resources for Research) infrastructure. It is also committed to a Quality Management System based on the ISO9001:2015 standard. The ISO9001:2015 certification process is in progress.
Biological Questions
An essential question in biology is to understand the origin of speciation. We are interested in hybrid incompatibilities observed in the VASC collections, a phenomenon in which the fitness of hybrids is much lower than that of the parents. These hybrid incompatibilities create reproductive barriers and can therefore lead to the formation of different species. Given the amount of genetic resources available, Arabidopsis thaliana provides an excellent model to explore the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind such incompatibilities.
In addition, our resources are essential to many other IJPB teams.
For example, the FTA team has identified, by screening the collection of HEM mutant lines, plants affected in the formation of hydathodes, small organs located at the leaf edge through which guttation occurs, which are an entry site for certain pathogens. This team is also looking for the genetic determinants of an original mechanism of direct regeneration of buds from roots, related to suckering. Numerous natural accessions have been studied to explore the variability of the phenomenon, and several QTL responsible for regeneration have been identified in RIL populations.
A project of the SAS team aims at identifying the factors involved in allelopathic processes by an association genetics approach (GWAS) using populations of natural accessions, but also resources useful for the validation of the identified candidate regions (F2 populations, HIF, mutants).
PHOTOS
Platform head:
Christine Camilleri