According to this research highlight in Nature Reviews Genetics, no: “Complex traits: Plants are not humans.” Ok, thanks, that title enlightens so much.

Then there is this pretty neat paper, called “Systematic discovery of nonobvious human disease models through orthologous phenotypes”. The abstract’s own words are intruiging:

Our method suggests a yeast model for angiogenesis defects, a worm model for breast cancer, mouse models of autism, and a plant model for the neural crest defects associated with Waardenburg syndrome, among others.

Remarkable! The methods aren’t new at all, but the new applications of the method are clever and amazing.