Welcome to Ae. arabicum DB

Ae. arabicum DB is an annotation and sequence database for Aethionema arabicum genome.

Aethionema arabicum is a plant with diaspore heteromorphism, a case observed in few plant species. It produces two types of fruits, one bigger and dehiscent that produces 2 to 6 mucilagenous seeds (M+) and another one indehiscent, which only contains one non-mucilagenous seed (M-). This provides the plant alternative strategies of dispersion of the seeds and germination times depending on the environmental conditions. M+ seeds would stick to the substrate and would remain close to the mother plant, while the M- seeds, inside an indehiscent fruit with wings would be dispersed longer distances by wind or water currents. Moreover, it has been observed Ae. arabicum shows plasticity to change the proportion of the two types of fruits depending on environmental responses such as temperature or branch cutting. Because of all these features, Ae. arabicum is an excellent model to study seed development, regulation, germination, dormancy and fruit dehiscence mechanisms.

Ae. arabicum is part of the Brassicaceae family and it is the sister group to the rest of the Brassicaceae (core-group). This group includes plants of interest such as cabbage, rapeseed, mustard and the model plant A. thaliana. The position of Ae. arabicum in the Brassicaceae family facilitates comparative genomics analyses and makes of Ae. arabicum a very interesting candidate for phylogenetic and evolutionary studies.

Please, when using this web site or its data, cite us using the reference:

Fernandez-Pozo, N., Metz, T., Chandler, J.O., Gramzow, L., Mérai, Z., Maumus, F., Mittelsten Scheid, O., Theissen, G., Schranz, M.E., Leubner-Metzger, G. and Rensing, S.A. (2021). Aethionema arabicum genome annotation using PacBio full-length transcripts provides a valuable resource for seed dormancy and Brassicaceae evolution research.
Plant J. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.15161