The Grass Genetics group takes advantage of induced variation and targeted engineering to characterize root system architecture, improve biomass performance and enhance microbial associations.
Projects
- Engineer grasses for broad spectrum resistance
- Engineer grasses for enhanced root growth, biomass and plant-microbe associations
- Create and characterize sorghum genetic variation
Featured Media
How genetic engineering can fight disease, reduce insecticide use and enhance food security, TED2015
A Better Route to Xylan
Genome-scale Network of Rice Genes to Speed the Development of Biofuel Crops
In the Lab with Pam Ronald
Featured Publications
- “Enhancing sustainable development through plant genetics.” Nature Reviews Genetics (2023)
- “Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it.” Nature (2023)
- “Engineering plants for a changing climate.” PLOS (2023)
- “Harnessing crop diversity.” PNAS (2023)
- “Field Performance of Switchgrass Cultivars Engineered for Biomass Traits.” Frontiers in Plant Science (2023)
- “Genome editing of a rice CDP-DAG synthase confers broad-spectrum disease resistance.” Nature (2023)
- “Root-knot nematodes produce functional mimics of tyrosine-sulfated plant peptides.” PNAS (2023)
- “An open source plant kinase chemogenomics set.” Plant Direct (2022)
- “Climate change challenges, plant science solutions.” The Plant Cell (2023)
- “Plant immunity: rice XA21-mediated resistance to bacterial infection.” PNAS (2022)
- “Sulfotyrosine residues: interaction specificity determinants for extracellular protein-protein interaction.” J. Biol. Chem (2022)
- “Targeted DNA insertion in plants.” PNAS (2021)
- “Suppression of rice miR168 improves rice yield, flowering time and immunity.” Nature Plants (2021)
- “Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass.” Nature (2021)
- “Marker-free carotenoid rice generated through high-efficiency targeted gene insertion using CRISPR-Cas9.” Nature Communications (2020) (Top 50 Nature Communications life and biological sciences articles published in 2020)
- “Genome sequence of the model rice variety KitaakeX.” BioRxiv (2019)
- “Whole-genome sequencing identifies a rice grain shape mutant.” Rice (2019)
- “A web-based tool for the prediction of rice transcription factor function.” Database (2019)
- “A genome scale co-functional networkof Xanthomonas oryzae genes can accurately reconstruct known regulatory circuits controlled by two-component signaling systems.” Mol. Cells (2019)
- “Biosynthesis and secretion of the microbial sulfated peptide RaxX and binding to the rice XA21 immune receptor.” PNAS (2019)
- “A histidine kinase gene is required for large radius root tip circumnutation and surface exploration in rice.” BioRxiv (2018)
- “The sequences of 1504 mutants in the model rice variety kite facilitate rapid functional genomic studies.” Plant Cell (2017)
- “Technology turbocharges functional genomics.” Plant Cell (2017)
- “Updated Rice Kinase Database RKD 2.0: Enabling transcriptome and functional analysis of rice kinase genes.”, Rice (2016)
- “A Genetic Screen Identifies Two Novel Rice Cysteine-rich Receptor-like Kinases That Are Required for the Rice NH1-mediated Immune Response.”, PloS Genetics (2016)
- “Genome-wide sequencing of 41 rice mutated lines reveals diverse mutations induced by fast-neutron irradiation.”, Molecular Plant (2016)
- “Phylogenomics databases for facilitating functional genomics in rice.”, Rice Journal (2015)
- “The rice immune receptor XA21 recognizes a tyrosine-sulfated peptide from a Gram-negative bacterium.”, Science Advances (2015)
- “Engineering spatio-temporal accumulation of a low recalcitrance polysaccharide leads to increased C6 sugar content in plant cell walls.”, Plant Biotechnology Journal (2015)
- “RiceNet v2: an improved network prioritization server for rice genes”, Nucleic Acids Research (2015)
- “Transgenic Expression of the Dicotyledonous Pattern Recognition Receptor EFR in Rice Leads to Ligand-Dependent Activation of Defense Responses.”, Plos Pathogens (2014)
- “Inactivation of OsIRX10 leads to decreased xylan content in rice stem cell walls and improved biomass saccharification.”, Molecular Plant (2013)
- “Overexpression of a BAHD Acyltransferase, OsAt10, Alters Rice Cell Wall Hydroxycinnamic Acid Content and Saccharification.”, Plant Physiology (2013)
- “XAX1 from Glycosyltransferase Family 61 Mediates Xylosyltransfer to Rice Xylan.”, PNAS (2012)
- “Loss of Cellulose Synthase-Like F6 function results in severe reduction of mixed-linkage glucan accumulation in rice primary cell walls.”, Plant Physiology (2012)
- “A Genome-Wide Survey of Switchgrass Genome Structure and Organization.”, Plos One (2012)
- “XAX1 from Glycosyltransferase Family 61 Mediates Xylosyltransfer to Rice Xylan.”, PNAS (2012)
- “The switchgrass genome: tools and strategies.”, Plant Genome. (2011)
Featured Intellectual Property
- Improved Xylan Extraction
- Identification and Alteration of Rice-Diverged Glycosyltransferases for Optimizing Biofuel Production from Grasses
- Energy Crops Engineered for Increased Sugar Extraction through Inhibition of snl6 Expression