A System for Dosage-Based Functional Genomics in Poplar

In a paper published in the Plant Cell Isabelle Henry and collaborators from the Groover lab report the characterization of a mutant population of poplar produced by crossing Populus deltoides with irradiated pollen of P. nigra. The resulting F1 population of ~500 interspecific hybrids (soon to grow to ~800) provides in average 10 deletions and 3 insertions for every gene. The great phenotypic variation displayed will enable both the study of dosage-dependent regulation and the identification of dosage QTL in many traits.