The INRA (Institut Scientifique de la Recherche Agronomique) at Versailles focuses its research on the DNA of the model plant organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Large quantities of the plant from all over the world, natural habitations and mutants, are grown in the greenhouses. The aim of INRA is to create a gene map of Arabidopsis that helps to predict the functioning of the DNA of other plant specimens.
The model plant itself only provides the gene material for analyzing, and seeds for breeding the next generations of the model plant.
After samples have been extracted, the scientific object Arabidopsis thaliana is soon transformed into charts, data collections, and bar codes. The plant specimens are not longer of use.