BioSciences

Access to the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii genome provides the means to pursue fundamental genomics-based research of relevance to algae, land plants, and animal lineages. Of the 17,741 gene models, the function of most is only of limited knowledge, thus undermining our ability to truly understand the biology of this alga, and plants at large. Transcriptomes, proteomes, and phenomes can each provide clues by presenting a global snapshot image of the behavior of the cell under specific conditions. Herein we describe the history of functional genomics, how it is being applied to Chlamydomonas, and discuss the resources available for the experimental validation of function predictions.