One of the main strengths of Arabidopsis thaliana as a model species is the impressive number of public resources available to the scientific community. Exploring species genetic diversity--and therefore adaptation--relies on collections of individuals from natural populations taken from diverse environments. Nevertheless, due to a few mislabeling events or genotype mixtures, some variants available in stock centers have been misidentified, causing inconsistencies and limiting the potential of genetic analyses. To improve the identification of natural accessions, we genotyped 1311 seed stocks from our Versailles Arabidopsis Stock Center and from other collections to determine their molecular profiles at 341 single nucleotide polymorphism markers. These profiles were used to compare genotypes at both the intra- and inter-accession levels. We confirmed previously described inconsistencies and revealed new ones, and suggest likely identities for accessions whose lineage had been lost. We also developed two new tools: a minimal fingerprint computation to quickly verify the identity of an accession, and an optimized marker set to assist in the identification of unknown or mixed accessions. These tools are available on a dedicated web interface called ANATool (https://www.versailles.inra.fr/ijpb/crb/anatool) that provides a simple and efficient means to verify or determine the identity of A. thaliana accessions in any laboratory, without the need for any specific or expensive technology.
© 2011 The Authors. The Plant Journal © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.