Diversity analysis of wild tomato species in the Lycopersicum clade using transcriptomes S. lycopersicum, the domesticated tomato’s genetic diversity has been drastically reduced due to bottlenecks during domestication and as a result, useful allele diversity has been...
Phenotypic and genetic instability of a gene duplication in Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary A duplication of the pathogen Resistance gene SNC1 in Arabidopsis thaliana results in a semi-dominant, curly leaved, dwarfing phenotype called bal. A 55-kb duplication of...
Amy is currently a senior at the University of Texas in Austin, TX. While in the Doyle lab, Amy studied the Glycine falcata phylogenies using chloroplast DNA and nuclear DNA. During her internship, Amy learned several techniques including gene phylogenies,...
RNA-seq Assembly of Transcriptomes in Various Tissues Collected from Solanum habrochaites, S. lycopersicum, S. pennellii, S. pimpinellifollium and Introgression Line 4-3 With the advent of high throughput nucleotide sequencing, genomics and transcriptomics have become...
Transcriptome characterization and evolution in cultivated and wild tomato species Project Summary Solanum lycopersicum, more commonly known as the tomato, is one of our most important agricultural crop. Not only is the bright red and fleshy fruit of the tomato a good...
Characterizing Arabidopsis FLS2 protein interactions using a split luciferase complementation assay FLS2 is receptor-like kinase that recognizes the bacterial protein flagellin. While this protein is important to plant immunity, little is known about signaling pathway...
Salicylic acid(SA) is a plant hormone that plays an important role in plant immunity and stress response. The hormone is involved in processes such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and hypersensitive response (a type or programmed cell death that acts to...
Transcription factor ATML1 is needed for giant cell patterning on the Arabidopsis sepal. Project Summary The formation of specialized cell types and patterns during development is necessary for the proper structure and function of a tissue. During Arabidopsis sepal...
Investigating Natural Variation of Epigenetic Regulation of the Promoter of the Stress Response Gene ESM1 Epithiospecifier Modifier 1 (ESM1) is a stress response gene affecting secondary metabolite formation in response to herbivory. In the promoter region of this...
Functional Analysis of Aphid Salivary Proteins Aphids rely on salivary proteins to infest plants. We have identified ~20 candidate genes encoding salivary proteins in Myzus persicae. I have started cloning and expressing 3 aphid salivary proteins. In planta expression...
Use of virus-induced gene silencing in Arabidopsis thaliana to identify trans-acting factors involved in mitochondrial editing RNA editing is any post-transcriptional modification to the primary transcript. In the organelles of flowering plants, some C’s undergo C-U...
Anthony is currently at Rochester Institute of Technology For the duration of his internship, Anthony worked under the supervision of Dr. Zhangjun Fei on PathOmics, integrating omics datasets with pathway information.
Anthony is currently a student at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Working with mentor Yunbi Xu and in collaboration with the Comstock lab, Anthony helped identify simple sequence repeats (SSRs) to fill in the gaps of the rice genome. For this project, he learned...
April is a student at the University of California- Berkeley. In the Giovannoni lab, April worked with post-doc Julia Vrebalov on a project that investigated family of NAC genes in tomato. For this project, April learned about DNA isolation, sequencing,...
Exploring the Role of CYP72A Genes in Maize Stress Response Project Summary Cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes are conserved in nearly all genomes and comprise approximately 1% of plant genomes. CYP proteins perform a wide range of biochemical functions, and are organized...
An Investigation of Cytokinin Regulation in the Arabidopsis thaliana Root Meristem This summer under the supervision of my P I, Dr. Ji-young Lee, and my mentors, Jose Sebastian and Jing Zhou, I participated in an investigation of cytokinin signaling in the Arabidopsis...
Designing Functional Ripening-Control Tomato Promoters Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum has been the subject of many studies focused on the development and ripening process of climacteric fruits; studies focus on pigmentation, texture, aroma, flavor, and nutrient...
Investigating the Function of β-Amylase5 in Maize Leaf Development and Differentiation When photosynthesis ceases during the night, sugars become available to plant systems by the breakdown of starch stored in chloroplasts. In vitro, β-amylases (BAMs) degrade starch...
Functional dissection of the ADR1 CCR domain and identification of its protein interactions in the plant immune system R-NB-LRR proteins are able to activate resistance signaling, characterized by hypersensitive response (HR). With little known of this domain, testing...
Comparison of effectiveness in gene silencing of phytoene desaturase (PDS) gene through RNAi and CRISPR techniques Project Summary Targeted genome editing approach- CRISPR/Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated) is relatively...
Benjamin is a student at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. In the Giovannoni lab, Ben worked with post-doc Rob Alba on a project that investigated the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway and the role of phytochrome in ripening in tomato. For this...
Development of Interspecific NILs for Yield Enhancement in Rice Though the complete genome sequence of rice became available in 2005, the development of improved varieties containing optimal combinations of the 30,000 genes in the rice genome remains a logistical...
Forward and reverse genetics for determining the genes involved in Rubisco assembly in Sertaria vidiris and Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary The vast majority of plants are C3 plants; they perform photorespiration and create sugars through carbon fixation. ...
Sharmila’s hometown is Palm Beach, FL and she is an undergrad here at Cornell. Sharmila splits her time between the Comstock lab, working with Paul King and the Brutnell lab, working with Judy Kolkman. Her project focuses on the physiological aspects of a maize wilted...
Characterization of Suberin Biosynthesis and Deposition in Arabidopsis thaliana Roots The polymer suberin plays a crucial role in plants, forming barriers that restrict and direct the flow of water, solutes and gases in the root endodermis. Since suberization of the...
A cross species exploration of nuclear morphology Our knowledge and understanding of the structures and mechanisms responsible for nuclear organization are based primarily on research in animal cells. In order to address the lack of understanding of plant nuclear...
Molecular and cytological characterization of dsyCS Meiotic recombination is the basis of evolutionary change over time. While recombination has been extensively studied, still little is known of the mechanisms behind this process. Many studies have suggested that...
Use of SUP-TALs to suppress virulence factors in Xanthomonas BLS256 Project Summary The bacterial plant pathogen Xanthomonas causes devastating disease on various plant species such as rice and soybeans, which results in bacterial infections such as bacterial leaf...
Bonnie is a student at St. Norbert College and worked this summer in the Rose lab with mentor Sang Jik Lee. Her project was a genome-scale screen to identify secreted proteins from tomato infected with the oomycete Phytophthora infestans. For this project, she used a...
Identification of genes expressed during key stages in maize shoot apical meristem and embryogenesis development During the summer I worked on the homology of the grass cotyledon, specifically in maize. My project focused on identifying genes expressed during key...
Characterization of singlet oxygen responsive transcription factors mutants During my stay at BTI, I analyzed two of transcription factors, WRKY46 and WRKY53. The biological relevance of these transcription factors was addressed by analyzing the double and triple...
Britney is currently a student at the Florida Insitute of Technology. For the duration of her internship, Britney worked under the supervision of Dr. Jian Hua to study lesion cell death in Arabidopsis. While completing her research, Britney learned several ”wet lab”...
Bryan is currently a student at local Ithaca High School. In the Jander lab, Bryan worked with post-doc Jae Hak Kim on a project studying glucosinolate induction by Myzus persicae, or the green peach aphid, using artificial diets. Glucosinolates and their breakdown...
Understanding the roles of the benzoxazinoid genes Bx10a, Bx10b, and Bx10c in maize-aphid resistance Project Summary Natural defense mechanisms are crucial for protecting plants against biological threats. Benzoxazinoids are secondary metabolites in maize that are...
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....
