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| Dr. Laura Bartley |
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Laura E. Bartley
Assistant Professor, Biofuels, Plant Molecular Biology
Studies in the Bartley lab are directed toward exploiting plants in order to help solve energy needs of the future. Here are two projects that occupy our current focus.
Understanding Grass Phenylpropanoid Synthesis and Regulation for Improved Biomass Production
Phenylpropanoids in the form of lignin and the grass-specific ferulic acid (FA) in arabinoxylan constitute the major barrier to accessing cell wall polysaccharide and also a significant source of chemical energy. These compounds also have a role in plant disease resistance and stress tolerance, and human and animal nutrition.
Though grasses are the most abundant source of biomass in the US, we do not understand which members of the grass-expanded and -diverged families of the enzymes and regulatory proteins direct the wall incorporation of phenylpropanoids. I have found that rice plants that overexpress members of a grass diverged family of acyltransferases have reduced wall FA, improved deconstructability, and normal growth. Transcriptional network analysis implicates
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| Some plant protoplasts |
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specific members of phenylpropanoid biosynthesis in incorporation of FA into grass cell walls. I will be dissecting the grass FA incorporation and lignin biosynthesis pathways in rice, Brachypodium, and switchgrass through molecular genetic and genomic methods, detailed phenotypic and biophysical analysis of resulting mutants, and biochemical analysis of implicated enzymes.
Dissection of Grass Wall-Wall Adhesion
Cell wall structure heavily influences the use of lignocellulosic material for biofuel production via fermentation and thermochemical methods. Each plant cell synthesizes its own wall, but the connections between walls are fundamental to formation of an intact plant body. Conversely, selective cell-separation is a common feature of plant development, including pollen, seed, and leaf dehiscence. Many cells are digested within bovine rumens from the cell-lumen side, suggesting that the connections between cells are crucial regions of recalcitrance within the cell wall matrix. The proteins and pectins that have been implicated in wall-wall adhesion from dicot genetic studies are inabundant in grass cell walls. I will be probing the roles of components and other genes that control and regulate wall-wall adhesion grasses, using similar approaches to those outlined above.
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| Rice: an excellent grass model |
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Selected Publications:
- Peng Y, Laura E. Bartley, Patrick Canlas and Pamela C. Ronald. 2010. OsWRKY IIa Transcription Factors modulate rice innate immunity. Rice, 3:36. DOI 10.1007/s12284-010-9039-6.
- Pei-Jian Cao, Laura E. Bartley, Ki-Hong Jung and Pamela C. Ronald. 2008. Construction of a Rice Glycosyltransferase Phylogenomic Database and Identification of Rice-Diverged Glycosyltransferases. Molecular Plant. 1(5): 858–877.
- Ki-Hong Jung, Laura E. Bartley, Peijian Cao, Patrick E. Canlas and Pamela C. Ronald. 2009. Analysis of Alternatively Spliced Rice Transcripts Using Microarray Data. Rice: Volume 2, Issue1 (2009), Page 44. DOI 10.1007/s12284-008-9020-9
- Peng Y, Laura E. Bartley, Xuewei Chen, Christopher Dardick, Mawsheng Chern, Randy Ruan, Patrick E. Canlas, Pamela C. Ronald. 2008. Xb10 encodes a WRKY transcription factor that mediates XA21 resistance. Molecular Plant. 1: 446-458.
- Ki-Hong Jung, Christopher Dardick, Laura E. Bartley, Peijian Cao, Jirapa Phetsom, Patrick Canlas, Young-Su Seo, Michael Shultz, Shu Ouyang, Qiaoping Yuan, Bryan C. Frank, Eugene Ly, Li Zheng, Yi Jia, An-Ping Hsia, Kyungsook An, Hui-Hsien Chou, David Rocke, Geun Cheol Lee, Patrick S. Schnable, Gynheung An, C. Robin Buell, Pamela C. Ronald. 2008. Refinement of Light-Responsive Transcript Lists Using Rice Oligonucleotide Arrays: Evaluation of Gene-Redundancy. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3337 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003337
For more information about this program, contact the Department or Dr. Laura Bartley.
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