Associate Professor, California State University, Fullerton, CA
Plants have multiple regulated cell death mechanisms that lead to programmed cell death (PCD) in different circumstances. My research program at California State University, Fullerton is specifically interested in the cell suicide that some plant cells undergo when they recognize a pathogen trying to infect their cells. This form of PCD, termed the hypersensitive response (HR), helps to limit and eliminate an infection so the pathogen cannot spread to other parts of the plant. Not all interactions between pathogens and resistant plants lead to death. In some virus infections, plants eliminate the virus without signs of HR. Work in my lab in the plant Nicotiana glutinosa has shown that different plants in the same species may be resistant to a virus but only undergo PCD in some genetic backgrounds, prompting the question of what genes are activated during induction of cell death? This question was addressed using RNA-Seq in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana that has a complete, annotated genome available by comparing gene expression between leaves floated for 24 hours on water (control) versus water containing paraquat, a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-inducing chemical that causes cell death. The dataset represents global changes in gene expression due solely to induction of cell death rather than in response to pathogen infection wherein expression of other genes may be altered as part of the plant’s defense response. Analysis of this dataset will be incorporated into the undergraduate class “Plant Molecular Biology (BIOL448)” along with follow-up studies to validate specific genes for changes in expression by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Comparison of selected genes in paraquat-treated leaves versus leaves undergoing HR in response to a pathogen infection will help shed light on genes that are important specifically for the PCD process during disease resistance.
Materials are under development.
Materials are under development.