BACKGROUND: Going from a gene sequence to its function in the context of a whole 
organism requires a strategy for targeting mutations, referred to as reverse 
genetics. Reverse genetics is highly desirable in the modern genomics era; 
however, the most powerful methods are generally restricted to a few model 
organisms. Previously, we introduced a reverse-genetic strategy with the 
potential for general applicability to organisms that lack well-developed 
genetic tools. Our TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes) method 
uses chemical mutagenesis followed by screening for single-base changes to 
discover induced mutations that alter protein function. TILLING was shown to be 
an effective reverse genetic strategy by the establishment of a high-throughput 
TILLING facility and the delivery of thousands of point mutations in hundreds of 
Arabidopsis genes to members of the plant biology community.
RESULTS: We demonstrate that high-throughput TILLING is applicable to maize, an 
important crop plant with a large genome but with limited reverse-genetic 
resources currently available. We screened pools of DNA samples for mutations in 
1-kb segments from 11 different genes, obtaining 17 independent induced 
mutations from a population of 750 pollen-mutagenized maize plants. One of the 
genes targeted was the DMT102 chromomethylase gene, for which we obtained an 
allelic series of three missense mutations that are predicted to be strongly 
deleterious.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that TILLING is a broadly applicable and 
efficient reverse-genetic strategy. We are establishing a public TILLING service 
for maize modeled on the existing Arabidopsis TILLING Project.