Tomato mutants as tools for functional genomics.

Abstract Tomato mutants have been used in genetic studies and breeding for decades, yet only a few tomato mutants have been characterized at the molecular level. Similarly, a wealth of sequence information for tomato is now available but the functions of only a few genes are known. New developments — such as the use of saturated mutant populations, new methods for the detection of mutants and new sequence data — are bridging the gap between tomato genes and their functions.