Elucidating the role of Arabidopsis organelle zinc finger proteins in RNA editing Project Summary In flowering plants, protein complexes called editosomes carry out cytosine (C) to uracil (U) editing of organelle transcripts by a deamination process. It alters the...
The Relationship Between Water Stress and Fruit Softening: The Cuticle as a Key Factor Project Summary The plant cuticle plays a critical role in preventing desiccation, but many aspects of its formation and structure-function relationships are poorly understood....
Nδ-acetylornithine is a new defensive non protein amino acid induced by methyl jasmonate inArabidopsis thaliana During my internship in the Jander lab at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI), I investigated the role of Nδ-acetylornithine, a...
Carolynis a recent graduate of Ramapo College in New Jersey. She worked in the Mueller lab on identifying transcription factors that will bind to the promoter regions of tomato unigenes involved in the metabolic pathways from SolCyc.
Catherine is a student at Williams College. In the Giovannoni lab, Catherine’s summer internship focused on characterization of the Tomato NAC Gene Family using standard molecular techniques such as bacterial DNA preparation, gene sequencing, bioinformatics, real-time...
Testing the Role of Error-Prone DNA Polymerases in Genetic Instability of Gene Duplications Project Summary Organisms like Arabidopsis thaliana activate error-prone DNA polymerases when under extreme stress, such as conditions causing high damage to DNA. We used DNA...
Exploring gene function in AM Symbiosis The purpose of my research this summer was to investigate the potential role of interesting fungal genes in the Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis. AM fungi are obligate biotrophs; dependent upon another organism for...
The function of the JAGGED gene in Arabidopsis thaliana sepal development The lateral organs of the plant, which include the leaves, sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels initiate development at the shoot apical meristem from small groups of cells in a primordium....
Microarray analysis of differential gene expression in tomato apricot mutants The tomato mutant apricot is a putative transcription factor controlling the ripening of tomatoes, especially the carotenoid, folate, and ascorbate biosynthetic pathways. My presentation...
Chris is currently a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This summer, Chris worked with mentor Amir Sattarzadeh on investigating myosin function in Arabidopsis via T-DNA insertion mutants and virus induced gene silencing. To accomplish this project, Chris...
Christa is a senior at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. During her internship, Christa studied development of a Near Isogenic Line containing an O. rufipogon introgression in the IR64 background in rice. Christa utilized several learned lab techniques...
Christopher is now a junior at the University of Puerto Rico- Aguadilla. During his internship, Christopher worked under the supervision of graduate student Ashley Egan to study expression patterns of photoprotective genes in diploid and tetraploid species of Glycine....
Epigenetic Regulation of Sadhu Transposable Elements in Arabidopsis thaliana Studies exploring natural variation of the Arabidopsis transcriptome uncovered a family of retrotransponsons, dubbed Sadhu elements, which show genetic and epigenetic variation among...
Membrane Topology of the TaALMT1 anion transporter mediating Aluminum tolerance in wheat The presence of soluble aluminum ions(Al3+) in acid soils, which comprise more than 50% of the potential arable land, severely limit crop productivity. Several species have...
Investigating FBOX protein interactions with ethylene receptors via targeted yeast two hybrid assays Project Summary The final stages of fruit development culminate with ripening and senescence and coincide with a burst of respiration and ethylene in fruit classified...
Characterization of a putative plastid transporter PAAC Transporters of the mitochondrial carrier family (MCF) are critical for cellular function because they transfer a variety of essential molecules across membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria and...
Exploring the Effects of Myosins on Chloroplast Movement. Over this past summer I worked in the Hanson lab on a project entitled: Exploring the Effects of Myosins on Chloroplast Movement. The goal of this project is to expand knowledge of how chloroplasts move around...
Temperature-Dependent Stomatal Modulation in Arabidopsis Thaliana Project Summary Previous studies and preliminary investigation by my mentor have revealed a connection between temperature and the ability of some Arabidopsis thaliana autoimmune mutants (such as...
Project Summary The lab I worked in was interested in iron nutritional quality in corn. I used two nearly identical strains of corn that differed in one major way: the iron in the seeds of one strain is mostly in a form usable by animals while the iron in the seeds of...
Cory is currently a student at Baldwin-Wallace College. During this past summer in the Harrison lab, Cory worked with mentor Jinyuan Liu. They transformed Medicago truncatula to over-express a serine threonine kinase and found that the mutants couldn’t express these...
Selection tests and network analysis of Nod factor receptors (NFRs) in Glycine subgenus Glycine Polyploidy is the presence of multiple sets of chromosomes in the genome of an organism. Polyploidy can result in changes in morphology, physiology and reproductive...
Validation of new salicylic acid binding proteins using a photoactivable analogue There are several hormones in plants such as ethylene, auxin and salicylic acid (SA) that regulate many physiological processes. SA is an essential signaling molecule in plant...
Genome assembly and analysis of wild tomato for markers associated with Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus The tomato is one of the most important fruit crops and humans have been domesticating them for hundreds of years in order to maximize the crop’s yield. Through the...
Using designer Transcription Activator-Like effectors to characterize the role of a rice ethylene response factor for Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola virulence Project Summary The Earth’s population has been predicted to reach 10 billion people by 2050. Current food...
Natural Epigenetic Variation in Sadhu Retroposons in Arabidopsis The Arabidopsis genome contains a family of retroposons that are called Sadhu elements. One of these elements, Sadhu1-1, was previously shown to exhibit epigenetic variation with respect to DNA...
Dan is a student at Ball State University in Indiana and comes from Chicago, IL. Graduate student, Liza Conrad was Dan’s mentor in the Brutnell lab. His project dealt with the distribution of Ds elements throughout the genome of maize to develop a two-component Ac/Ds...
Aboveground Resistance in Solanum tuberosum in Response to Belowground Herbivory Project Summary Resistance responses to herbivory are crucial for plants to survive and adapt to the threats that surround them. The responses can be categorized into alterations in the...
Analysis of Arabidopsis triple mutant of Plastoglobule-localized ABC1 Kinases 1/3/6 Project Summary In chloroplasts, plastoglobules (PGs) are lipoprotein particles contiguous with the outer lipid leaflet of the thylakoid membrane that act as sites of passive lipid...
Analysis of Branching in the Lycophyte genus Selanginella Using techniques from the molecular level and observations from the individuals as a whole, an investigation of the apical zone began. Strahler stream order analysis quantified the branching pattern using field...
An investigation to identify transcription factors that regulate the radial root growth in Arabidopsis thaliana and Raphanus sativus The radish (Raphanus sativus, family: Brassicaceae) is one example of a root crop that is widely consumed as a source of energy and...
David is a student at Dryden High School and has worked in the McCouch lab this summer with Christina Hoffman and Greg Wilson. Using PCR methods, David worked toward finding MITES such as mPing, Tourist and Stowaway on four varieties of rice plants: Nipponbare,...
Identification of Conserved Noncoding Sequences in Papilionoid Legumes and their Impact on the Evolution of Nodulation Project Summary Conserved noncoding sequences (CNSs) are regions of DNA that are evolutionarily conserved but not translated. These regions have been...
Development of nearly isogenic lines of tomato for the gene conferring the green shoulder phenotype The tomato uniform ripening (u) mutation confers a light green fruit phenotype as compared the wild type (U) green shoulder and is widely used in breeding for tomato...
Identification of Virus Genome sequences from RNA-seq data of a field-grown tomato plant Viral diseases in crops have a detrimental agricultural and economical impact globally, especially in developing countries. However, efforts to mitigate the impact of crop viruses...
Genetic Study of the Relationship of Clp Protease to Plastid Metabolism & DNA Repair in Arabidopsis Thaliana Plastids play a critical role in cellular function by manufacturing metabolic compounds and conducting photosynthesis. These processes are maintained...
Role of HSC Proteins in BON1 mediated suppression of plant immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary Plants possess two levels of immune responses. The first level is Pathogen Associated molecular patterns or PAMPs, which are recognized by cell surface...
Dennis is a currently a junior at SUNY Cortland in Cortland, NY, During his internship Dennis studied the identification of the vtc3 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana via a map based cloning/traditional sequencing approach. During the summer, Dennis worked under the...
Diane is currently a student at Drury University. This summer, Diane worked in the Stern lab with mentor Katia Wostrikoff on the comparison of Bsd2 in maize and tobacco. She also investigated the role of Bsd2 in Rubisco formation. Diane learned PCR and other standard...
Involvement of Mai1 in effector-triggered immunity Crop plants are susceptible to many pathogens which can negatively affect the appearance and marketability of various types of products. Plants like tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) have evolved mechanisms to resist...
Filling of Reference Genome Gaps Using Next Generation Sequencing From famous entraes such as spaghetti and pasta to mouthwatering salsa, tomato has a wide variety of uses in world’s cuisine. Tomato is also very important in our diet. According to a magazine...
The Chloroplast Clp Protease System in Maize leaves Project Summary The Clp (caseinolytic protease) is the most abundant stromal protease in chloroplasts and it plays a critical role in plastid development and function, through selective removal of misfolded,...
Understanding Early Meiotic Role of Cytoskeletal Elements in Maize Chromosomal pairing events in meiotic prophase I are linked to chromosome dynamics in maize. In order to facilitate homologous pairing, chromosomes undergo vigorous movements referred to as rapid...
Egbert is a student at Philadelphia University and worked this past summer in the Doyle lab. Under the guidance of Bernard Pfeil, Egbert worked on comparing 6 of 8 Teramnus species to Glycine max to determine their evolutionary relatedness and build a 1 Mb sequence....
Elana is from Groton, NY and is currently a student at Groton High School. In the McCouch lab, Elana is working with graduate student, Anjali Iyer. Their project is focused on identifying a section of the rice genome that is responsible for this crop’s resistance...
Functional dissection of the VIM1 protein and its role in cytosine methylation in Arabidopsis Epigenetics is the study of chromatin modifications, such as cytosine methylation and histone modification, which affect gene expression. VARIANT IN METHYLATION 1 (VIM1) is...
Elena is currently a student at the University of Tennessee. She worked in the Brutnell lab with graduate student Patrice DuBois on a project working to test and measure shade avoidance in maize by controlling the red/far-red light ratio. During her summer at the BTI,...
Localization of ART1 Protein using Multi-Color Subcellular Localizing Proteins Project Summary Aluminum stress is problematic in acidic soils, which cover up to 50% of the world’s arable land. Sixty percent of acidic soil is in developing countries, increasing their...
Natural variability in jasmonate expression among parental recombinant inbred lines in maize Project Summary On a day-to-day basis, plants are exposed to a vast range of environmental stresses. Despite unfavorable conditions, they must maintain Darwinian fitness,...
Characterization of the flagellin-derived MAMP flgII-28 and its perception in various cultivars of tomato Project Summary In Pattern-Triggered Immunity (PTI), plants use pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) to detect evolutionarily conserved microbe-associated...
