From top to bottom: Exploring receptor pathways in graft compatibility Grafting is an ancient technique where two plants are physically connected to make a single plant. Grafts between two plants may be compatible, meaning their vasculature reconnects, or...
Gene-based Pan-genome Analysis of Cucumber Global challenges like climate change and population growth have intensified the need for more robust crop varieties. Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have facilitated the creation of pangenomes, which identify...
Toward redirecting cardenolide biosynthesis in tropical milkweed: from 5-alpha to 5-beta configuration Cardenolides, traditionally used in heart medications, are produced in plants such as milkweed, wallflower, and foxglove. Besides their biosynthetic complexity,...
Impact of Seed Corn Maggot on the Three Sisters Crop System: Investigating Host Preference and Performance In 2027, New York will place a state-wide ban on neonicotinoid pesticides which have had several negative effects on pollinators. Due to this ban, many farmers...
Investigating BdWOX3 and BdLG1 protein accumulation and their mutant phenotypes In grass model systems, particularly Zea mays (maize), leaf development has been extensively studied through genetic approaches. Maize double mutants narrowsheath1/2 (ns1/2) fail to...
Molecular Mechanics Underlying Tepary Bean Responses to Drought Stress As climate change progresses, rising global temperatures continue to increase stress on the world’s agricultural systems. The common bean (whose varieties include green, navy, black, kidney, and...
When do leaves commit to their phenotypic fate? Developmental point of no return on the early leaves from the det2-1 mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana Leaves are extremely diverse in size and shape throughout the plant kingdom. Understanding processes that regulate how...
Molecular Signals and Auxin Distribution in Callus Tissue Tissue culture is a vital technique for maintaining or growing plant cells, tissues, or callus under sterile conditions on a nutrient culture medium, enabling the propagation of genetically identical plants....
Genomic prediction of monolignol composition in maize hybrids Maize (Zea mays L.) is cultivated on over 93 million acres in the U.S. and produces substantial crop residues, with maize stover— the biomass left after grain harvest—emerging as a potential resource for...
Does Mother Really Know Best? Preference-Performance Hypothesis of Delia platura in Organic Fertilizers. Since New York has a prominent dairy industry, many farms use cow manure as a natural organic fertilizer. However, it has been proposed that manure might attract...
Sublethal effects of piperonyl butoxide, a common insecticide synergist, on bumble bee microcolonies Piperonyl butoxide (PBO) is a common insecticide synergist used in agricultural products throughout the U.S. PBO increases the effectiveness of insecticides by...
Modeling Alfalfa Growth using Remote Sensing Data Remote Sensing provides a high throughput and nondestructive means to phenotype plant growth and development. In this study we evaluated the utility of using remote sensing data to model biomass accumulation in Alfalfa...
Role of S-adenosyl-L-methionine Synthase in Aphid Attraction Plant viruses are transmitted by insect vectors, like aphids. Aphids use a needle-like stylet to feed from plant cells and virus particles can attach to aphid stylets when aphids feed on virus-infected...
Engineering Enhanced Photosynthesis in Zea mays Zea mays (Maize, Zm) and Miscanthus x giganteus (Mg) employ C4 photosynthesis, which enhances carbon assimilation efficiency by concentrating CO2 around Rubisco to minimize photorespiration. Pyruvate, orthophosphate...
Investigating the Role of CAT in BAP1 Mediated Immune Response In Arabidopsis thaliana, the BAP (BON1 association protein) family of proteins are important for plant growth. The loss of BAP1 leads to growth reduction in Arabidopsis thaliana. The BAP1 protein is...
Relationship of Indels with Meiotic Recombination Sites in Maize Meiotic recombination, a process that generates new combinations of alleles, is crucial for increasing genetic variation within species. Meiotic recombination is thought to be a very precise process but...
Comparing the daily dynamics of stomatal features between slac1 with mutant allele and slac1 wild-type across different genetic backgrounds Climate change leads to increased drought events that challenge food security. Substantial research efforts are needed to find...
De novo annotation of long noncoding RNAs in tomato and eggplant A large fraction of the genomes of multicellular organisms contain genes specifying many classes of RNAs, inducing the complexity of the transcriptome. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have increasingly...
Root System Development, Architecture, and Traits in Maize As the demand for crops along with the frequency and duration of droughts is predicted to increase, it is essential to develop crops with improved water uptake efficiency. In order to understand how maize, a...
Exploring the cold tolerance capacity of USDA pea (Pisum sativum L.) collections Winter pea (Pisum sativum L.) is a commonly grown winter annual legume cover crop in the US due to its nitrogen-fixing capabilities, effective weed suppression, and several other...
The palatability of Oenothera flava for Hyles lineata larvae Hyles lineata hawkmoths play an important role in pollinating many plant species with night blooming flowers, but in the case of evening primroses (genus Oenothera), they eat the leaves of the same plants...
Conserved m6A sites in Arabidopsis thaliana and Sorghum bicolor mRNA RNA bases can be modified in many ways. These modifications can influence stability, translation, and structure. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most common and well-studied mRNA modifications...
Revealing candidate genes for maize resistance against Spodoptera exigua (beet armyworm) via GWAS Maize crops worldwide suffer substantial losses every year due to damage caused by pests, such as the armyworm. Secondary metabolites, specialized complex molecules...
Optimizing SynBio Systems to Express Bryophyte Rubiscos in E. coli Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) is the notoriously inefficient carbon-fixing enzyme involved in photosynthesis. Despite its importance, it has a slow catalytic rate, poor...
Know when to hold ‘em: Folate Biofortification via Stabilization and Storage Folates are B-vitamins essential for creating energy-rich molecules like ATP, and for regulating genetic repair and expression. Because humans do not produce folate, maintaining a folate-rich...
Cell-type marker gene expression in Medicago truncatula Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi participate in a mutualistic endosymbiosis with most land plants, exchanging mineral nutrients for carbon compounds through structures called arbuscules. Decoding this symbiosis...
Predicting BAHD Acyltransferase Function Through Phylogenetic Analysis and Molecular Docking Understanding substrate-enzyme interactions is critical for advancing biochemical research and drug development. This study focuses on BAHD enzymes, a family known for...
Come Together: Vasculature and Public Opinion on GMOs One use of grafting in research is to gain insight into plant development. Grafting enables researchers to study how different elements of the plant develop, while working on a larger scale that is much easier to...
Understanding Tomato Regeneration and Maize Transformation Through Bioengineering Tomato and maize are major crops and genetic models for studying gene function. Different genotypes exhibit varying responses to transformation. In plant bioengineering, some genotypes...
Understanding the role of PRD2 in regulating meiotic recombination in maize Genetic variation is important for developing crops with higher yields, disease resistance, and other desirable traits. During plant meiosis, homologous recombination (HR) ensures this genetic...
Carotenoid Composition and Interaction with Dry Matter Across Spatial Variation and Developmental Time in Cassava (Manihot esculenta) Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major cause of blindness and increased mortality in sub-Saharan African children. While cassava...
Exploring mechanisms of TAL-effector recognition and escape from rice and tomato resistance proteins Bacterial leaf streak (Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola, Xoc) is a rice pathogen in Africa and Asia. Xo1 is a rice resistance protein which recognizes transcription...
First dual-sex hornwort genomes probe sex chromosome evolution in a haploid system Hornworts (Anthocerophyta) are a group of seed-free, nonvascular plants known for their horn-shaped sporophyte generation. Shared only with some other seed-free plants and fungi, their...
Enabling DNA Complexation and Plant Transformation with Cell-Penetrating Peptides Conventional techniques for plant genetic engineering have challenges including genotype and species dependence, tissue damage, and complicated progeny regeneration. Several types of...
Integration of proximal remote sensing data streams through deep learning increases predictability of agronomically important traits Phenotyping, known simply as the process of obtaining and analyzing the observable characteristics of an organism that culminate as a...
Investigating insect defense systems in groundcherry as a model for related Physalis species Physalis is a genus of fruit plants native to Central and South America. Goldenberry (Physalis peruviana) has abundant nutritional and medicinal properties that make it...
Investigating Gene Expression and DNA Methylation Patterns Following Genome Duplication in Maize Most crop plants are diploid (2n), meaning their genome contains two copies of each chromosome. Maize is no exception; however, it evolved from a tetraploid (4n) ancestor....
Investigating How Glucose Regulates Protein Modification to Influence Longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans Glucose is known to decrease the lifespan of C. elegans. One way it does this is by causing atypical protein modifications. While some of these protein...
Impact of a lincRNA on seedling development Plant responses to environmental stimuli are complex, involving regulatory mechanisms at the protein and RNA levels. In this research, we are looking at transcriptional regulation mediated by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs)....
Uncovering the mechanisms of potato leaf roll virus’ effect on Myzus persicae’s antiviral immunity Flaviviruses are single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses primarily transmitted by arthropods from host to host. Many have caused major global public health crises,...
Linking Genotype Specific Interkingdom Communication with Shifts in Environmental P Pools Reveals New Insights into Plant-Microbe-Environment Resource Utilization Increasing demand on global agriculture and growing pressures from climate change urge more sustainable...
Effects of methyl jasmonate seed treatment on adult and larval seed corn maggot (Delia platura) preference, and impacts of soil amendments Seed corn maggot (Delia platura) is an agricultural pest that develops in the soil by consuming organic matter, such as corn...
CRISPGET: The CRISPR Guide Evaluator Tool to support guide selection based on off-target scoring systems The CRISPR/Cas nuclease systems are game changers within the different genome editing tools. They were discovered as a part of the bacterial immune system and...
The role of genes encoding pericycle-specific expression in development of lateral roots and salinity tolerance Salinity stress is a contributing factor to lowering crop yield due to the accumulation of sodium ions in the shoot and interfering with photosynthesis as...
Copper Regulator CITF1 Crosstalks with Iron Regulator FIT in Arabidopsis thaliana Copper and iron are essential micronutrients for plants. They are vital for biological processes such as photosynthesis but can be toxic when over-accumulated. Thus, plants have...
Investigating the Role of HugZ Proteins in Chloroplast Proteolysis and Heme Homeostasis Chloroplast proteolysis is essential for maintaining chloroplast function, with the CLP system playing a key role in selectively degrading misfolded or damaged proteins. CLPC1, an...
Evaluation of herbivorous insect resistance amongst Card4, Card6, Card8 and DAO-1 mutant lines of Erysimum cheiranthoides The biosynthetic pathway of cardiac glycosides has not yet been fully deciphered. The chemical diversity of these compounds is large, and little...
Using Computational Predictions to Engineer Rubisco Kinetics Elevated temperatures, associated with climate change, have drastic impacts on photosynthesis, reducing plant size and growth in the long run. Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, Rubisco for...
Generating a Phased Genome Assembly of the Hexaploid Sweetpotato Cultivar, ‘New Kawogo’ Sweet potato is among the most important staple crops. Sweet potato cultivars rich in Vitamin A have been produced and promoted in areas where childhood Vitamin A deficiency is...
