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Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana is a small flowering plant in the Brassicaceae family and one of the principal model organisms in plant genetics, genomics, development, epigenetics, and molecular biology. Its compact genome, short generation time, extensive mutant collections, and well-developed community resources have made it a central reference species for functional plant research.

AraBase provides browser-based access to two major Arabidopsis reference resources. TAIR12 represents the current genome and annotation release used by AraBase, while TAIR10 together with Araport11 provides a widely used historical reference assembly and community annotation. These resources are presented separately to prevent ambiguity between assemblies and annotation releases.

This page summarizes the available genome assemblies, annotations, downloadable files, tools, external resources, and citation information. AraBase is implemented as a static genomic database, with lightweight searches, sequence retrieval, and genome browsing performed in the user’s browser.

Genome Information

MetricTAIR12TAIR10 / Araport11
Assembly / releaseTAIR12TAIR10 assembly with Araport11 annotation
Reference speciesArabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thaliana
Nuclear chromosomes55
Organelle sequencesChloroplast and mitochondrial sequences includedChloroplast and mitochondrial sequences included
Genome FASTAAthaliana_TAIR12_genomic_Chr_softmasked.fa.gzTAIR10_chr_all.fa.gz
Primary gene annotationTAIR12 protein-coding gene annotationAraport11 protein-coding gene annotation
Non-coding RNA annotationTAIR12 non-coding RNA annotationAraport11 non-coding RNA annotation
Transposable-element annotationTAIR12 transposable elements, TE subclasses, and non-TE repeatsAraport11 classified transposable elements and TE genes
Genome browserAvailableAvailable
Sequence extractionGene, transcript, CDS, and protein where supportedGene, transcript, CDS, protein, and TE/repeat where supported

Main Data

ResourceTAIR12TAIR10 / Araport11Description
Genome assemblyAthaliana_TAIR12_genomic_Chr_softmasked.fa.gzTAIR10_chr_all.fa.gzBGZF-compressed reference genome FASTA.
Gene annotationTAIR12_protein_coding_with_UTRs.gff3.gzAraport11_GFF3_genes_transposons.20250813_protein_coding.gff3.gzProtein-coding gene annotation in BGZF-compressed GFF3 format.
Non-coding RNA annotationTAIR12_non_coding_RNA.gff3.gzAraport11_GFF3_genes_transposons.20250813.gff3.all_ncRNAs.gff3.gzAraport11 non-coding RNA annotation.
TE annotationTAIR12_All_TE.gff3.gzAraport11_GFF3_genes_transposons.20250813_classified_transposable_element.gff3.gzClassified transposable-element annotation.
Complete annotationTAIR12_genome_annotation_TAIR.gff3.gzAraport11_GFF3_genes_transposons.20250813.gff3.gzCombined Araport11 genes and transposable-element annotation.

External Resources

ResourceDescription
TAIRThe Arabidopsis Information Resource: genome annotation, gene information, literature, stocks, and community resources.
AraportArabidopsis community portal and data resources.
Ensembl PlantsGenome browser, gene annotation, comparative genomics, and plant variation resources.
NCBI Taxonomy: Arabidopsis thalianaNCBI taxonomy record for Arabidopsis thaliana.
CoGeComparative genomics and genome evolution analysis platform.
PhytozomePlant comparative genomics portal with genome assemblies, annotations, and gene-family resources.

Citation

Please cite AraBase together with the relevant genome assembly, annotation release, and software used in your analysis.

AraBase

Chen, H., Emmerson, R., and Mosher, R. 2026. Near-gapless and haplotype-resolved Capsella genomes enable investigation into genomic consequences of mating system shifts. bioRxiv, 2026.07.10.737683. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.10.737683

TAIR12

Reiser, L., Proia, A., Bakker, E., Subramaniam, S., Khosa, K., Sawant, S., Chen, X., Prithvi, T., and Berardini, T. Z. 2026. Recent major changes to TAIR: updates to the database, website, and Arabidopsis genome. Genetics 232(4):iyaf248. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf248

Wlodzimierz, P., Rabanal, F. A., Burns, R., et al. 2023. Cycles of satellite and transposon evolution in Arabidopsis centromeres. Nature 618:557–565. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06062-z

TAIR10

Lamesch, P., Berardini, T. Z., Li, D., Swarbreck, D., Wilks, C., Sasidharan, R., Muller, R., Dreher, K., Alexander, D. L., Garcia-Hernandez, M., Karthikeyan, A. S., Lee, C. H., Nelson, W. D., Ploetz, L., Singh, S., Wensel, A., and Huala, E. 2012. The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR): improved gene annotation and new tools. Nucleic Acids Research 40(D1):D1202–D1210. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkr1090

Araport11

Cheng, C.-Y., Krishnakumar, V., Chan, A. P., Thibaud-Nissen, F., Schobel, S., and Town, C. D. 2017. Araport11: a complete reannotation of the Arabidopsis thaliana reference genome. The Plant Journal 89(4):789–804. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.13415

JBrowse 2

Diesh, C., Stevens, G. J., Xie, P., De Jesus Martinez, T., Hershberg, E. A., Leung, A., Guo, E., Dider, S., Zhang, J., Bridge, C., Hogue, G., Wang, X., Liu, G., Dunn, M., Holmes, I. H., and Buels, R. M. 2023. JBrowse 2: a modular genome browser with views of synteny and structural variation. Genome Biology 24:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-023-02914-z

BAR / ePlant

Sullivan, A., Lombardo, M. N., Pasha, A., Lau, V., Zhuang, J. Y., Christendat, A., Pereira, B., Zhao, T., Li, Y., Wong, R., Qureshi, F. Z., and Provart, N. J. 2025. 20 years of the Bio-Analytic Resource for Plant Biology. Nucleic Acids Research 53(D1):D1576-D1586. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkae920