Moss

Physcomitrium patens

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Physcomitrium patens (previously known as Physcomitrella patens) is widely studied for insights into plant evolution, development, and genetics. It is a bryophyte (a group of non-vascular land plants) used as a model organism due to its simple body plan and genetic tractability, making it ideal for studying plant biology.

  • Evolutionary Significance: As an early-diverging lineage of land plants, P. patens provides insights into the evolution of plant development and physiology, bridging the gap between green algae and vascular plants.
  • Life Cycle: P. patens has a dominant gametophyte stage (haploid), which is unusual compared to the dominant sporophyte stage in most vascular plants. This makes it an important subject for studying plant development and life cycle evolution.
  • Regeneration and Totipotency: It exhibits remarkable regenerative abilities, with individual cells capable of regenerating into new plants, demonstrating totipotency. This feature is significant for genetic studies and transformation experiments.
  • Transformation Efficiency: P. patens is one of the few plants where homologous recombination (gene targeting) works efficiently, making it a powerful system for genetic manipulation and functional genomics.
  • Water Dependence: Like other mosses, P. patens relies heavily on water for reproduction, as its sperm require water to swim to the egg, reflecting early land plant traits that evolved before the development of more sophisticated water-conserving structures.

These features make Physcomitrium patens an essential tool for studying early land plant evolution, gene function, and plant development under controlled laboratory conditions.

Multiple gene model versions have been developed over the last ten years for P. patens. Here we provide a tool to lookup gene versions automatically for multiple genes. Click on the picture to visualize P. patens gene model nomenclature.


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Genome assembly stats

Summary of the Physcomitrium patens genome assembly (Phypa V3), from Lang et al., 2018.

Contigs Scaffolds
Total assembly size (Mb) 465.87 471.85
Total assembled sequences 3,000 357
N50 (Mb) 0.47 17.44
L50 311 12

Taxonomy

Kingdom Viridiplantae
Phylum Streptophyta
Class Briopsyda
Order Funariales
Family Funariaceae
Genus Physcomitrium
Species Physcomitrium patens