Brachypodium distachyon, which belongs to the subfamily Pooideae, has recently been studied extensively as a model temperate grass. Since Brachypodium possesses type II cell wall, which is a structural characteristic of Poaceae plants, and is also found in energy crops, such as switchgrass and Miscanthus, as cellulose biomass resources, it has been proposed as a model plant in grass biomass research. In addition, Brachypodium is included in the Pooideae subfamily together with wheat and barley, and therefore, it could be promising to study biological functions related to agronomically important traits, such as seed development and flowering, in Triticeae crops. Brachypodium represents tractable features as a model plant ; small plant size, healthy growth inside laboratory conditions, without any requirement of any specific instruments, short life cycle, small genome size (272 Mb), and availability of transformation. Following the completion of whole-genome sequencing in 2010, various resources for Brachypodium research have been developed world wide. In this review, we introduce the current trends in Brachypodium research as well as provide prospects and expected functionalities of the model grass.
