RESEARCH
Natural variation and light sensing
As sessile organisms, plants are unable to move to more favorable environments and must instead adjust to the conditions in which they are growing. In response to changes in light quantity and quality, plants can initiate a shade avoidance response that includes elongated hypocotyls, increased leaf angle, elongated internodes and petioles, and early flowering. While potentially advantageous for the individual plant, this response can divert resources from agronomically relevant tissues, leading to undesirable outcomes in crowded agricultural settings. My postdoctoral work in the Maloof lab focuses on identifying genes important for this response by utilizing natural variation and quantitative genetics tools, currently focusing on the model plant Arabidopsis.
Dynamic analysis of sun vs. shade growth I am currently investigating a set of natural variants in Arabidopsis using a custom camera setup to track plant growth over time under sun and simulated shade conditions. Previous work in the field has focused on single time point measurements in single tissues, so my work is developing a strong model of the dynamics of shade avoidance over time in multiple tissues. |
Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS)
Genome-wide association studies use sequence differences between natural variants to identify regions of the genome associated with a phenotype. To identify the precise gene associated with the phenotype, we must test genes in the genomic region. In collaboration with a UC Davis honors undergraduate, Megan Choi, I am working to identify and characterize the causal genes for a number of genomic regions identified through GWAS as important for shade avoidance. |
Differential gene expression Transcript profiling can be a powerful tool to understanding the order of gene action. To better understand how plants native to habitats around the world respond to shade avoidance, I am currently using RNAseq to investigate gene expression in a number of different natural variants after exposure to shade. |