REGIA, an EU project on functional genomics of transcription factors from Arabidopsis thaliana

Transcription factors (TFs) are regulatory proteins that have played apivotal role in the evolution of eukaryotes and that also have great biotechnologicalpotential. REGIA ( RE gulatory G ene I nitiativein A rabidopsis) is an EU‐funded project involving 29 European laboratorieswith the objective of determining the function of virtually all transcriptionfactors from the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana . REGIA involves:1. the definition of TF gene expression patterns in Arabidopsis ;2. the identification of mutations at TF loci; 3. the ectopic expressionof TFs (or derivatives) in Arabidopsis and in crop plants; 4. phenotypicanalysis of the mutants and mis‐expression lines, including both RNA and metabolicprofiling; 5. the systematic analysis of interactions between TFs; and 6.the generation of a bioinformatics infrastructure to access and integrateall this information. We expect that this programme will establish the fullbiotechnological potential of plant TFs, and provide insights into hierarchies,redundancies, and interdependencies, and their evolution. The project involvesthe preparation of both a TF gene array for expression analysis anda normalised full length open reading frame (ORF) library of TFs in a yeasttwo hybrid vector; the applications of these resources should extend beyondthe scope of this programme. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons,Ltd.