RESEARCH OVERVIEW

The research programs in my laboratory encompass a diverse set of projects that have at their base our investigation of the biosynthesis and function of membrane and seed-storage lipids in plants using Arabidopsis as a model. The projects include the isolation and characterization of genes that control the elongation, desaturation or other modifications of fatty acids. These genes have been used to produce transgenic plants with altered membrane compositions or improved vegetable oils. One goal is to engineer plants to provide environmentally friendly production of plastics, resins and other chemical products that enhance people’s lives. We also have research projects that focus on the roles of membrane lipids in the cell biology and physiology of plants using a large number of mutants with alterations in the lipid composition of their membranes. In addition, our isolation of jasmonate-deficient and jasmonate-responsive mutants of Arabidopsis has allowed us to make new discoveries about the involvement of jasmonate in pollen development, insect defense and non-host resistance against fungal pathogens. These discoveries have wide implications for plant biology in areas ranging from the production of biomaterials to crop protection.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

As the population of the world increases there are increasing demands on natural resources. One solution to this problem is to use plants as 'Green Factories' to produce specific renewable resources and sources of bioenergy. Advances in genetic engineering have resulted in routine methods for the introduction of genes into crop plants. Previous efforts in crop improvement have focused on the transfer of existing genes into plants to tailor plant storage compounds. A key element of future efforts will be directed towards engineering enzymes with novel specificities and/or the ability to introduce a particular functionality. This will free metabolic engineers from the constraints imposed by the existing variation of natural enzymes and will present a major step towards the engineering of desired storage compounds.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

My lab conducts basic and applied research on plant lipid metabolism. The goals of our research are to enhance the nutritional and industrial value of crop plants and to probe the synthesis and function of bioactive lipids for nutritional biofortification and improved agronomic performance of crops.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

The goal of research in the Lu Lab is to understad genetic and biochemical factors that contribute to the great diversity of fatty acids in seed oils. A particular interest is to genetically engineer the seeds of camelina (Camelina sativa) to produce industrial fatty acids and to increase oil content for biofuels and biomaterials.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Plants accumulate oil in their seeds to provide the energy and carbon necessary for a germinating seed to grow into a plant. While seeds from our familiar crops are rich in edible vegetable oils, nature has provided some seeds with a broad assortment of oil compositions, and some unusual oils may have useful industrial applications. A major focus of the Jaworski lab is to use biotechnology to explore the capacity of seeds to accumulate useful molecules, usually for non-food or industrial applications. Another area of focus in recent years is to explore ways to engineer seeds to make more oil for biofuels. With this research, the Jaworski lab is obtaining a basic understanding of pathways involved in plant lipid synthesis.

OHLROGGE LAB RESEARCH OVERVIEW

A long term goal of my laboratory is to understand how plants control the activity of fatty acid synthesis and lipid metabolism pathways and how their products are channeled into diverse roles and locations within or outside the plant cell. In order to guide rational efforts toward metabolic engineering of seeds we are developing flux models of central metabolism in oilseeds. Recently we discovered a new metabolic route for carbohydrate conversion to oil in seeds. We have characterized genes for several enzymes of lipid metabolism and are studying the regulation of these genes through microarrays and other genomic approaches. We also transform plants with genes involved in lipid metabolism in sense and antisense constructs both to study their physiological role and to obtain useful alterations in plant oils.