Natural variation MAGIC (Mutant-Assisted Gene Identification and Characterization)

Arabidopsis contains natural variation in glucosinolate profiles, which has been a key genetic tool to identify the genes within the glucosinolate system. In the past decade we have identified nearly all of the major genes controlling natural variation. Importantly, there are hundreds of additional genes that remain to be studied using natural variation, but most of these have very modest or conditional effects that complicate their identification.

To solve this difficulty, we exploited a new approach labeled MAGIC where we introduced either a mutant or transgene into the plants to amplify the phenotypic consequence of natural variation and simplify the identification of the underlying genes. This allowed us to isolate and identify new regulatory genes for the glucosinolate system that are only accessible utilizing natural variation.