Projects

Four | Localization of proteins of unknown function in Arabidopsis.

This project is funded by the NSF 2010 Program.

The recent completion of the Arabidopsis genome sequence delivered a catalog of approximately 25,000 genes that together make a higher plant. However, approximately one third of these genes have no known function in plants or other systems. As an initial approach to characterize these "genes of unknown function", we plan to localize their encoded protein products using fusions to the Yellow Fluorescent Protein (YFP). We developed a high throughput overlap PCR procedure to fuse the YFP coding sequence at our chosen site within any gene coding sequence. The fusions will be transformed into Arabidopsis plants for analysis of tissue specific and sub-cellular localization of the protein under its native regulatory sequences. This project should discover novel developmental and sub-cellular domains, and may identify proteins that localize to known plant structures for which we currently do not have molecular components, such as plasmodesmata.

Continue: Five | Regulation of phyllotaxy in maize by ABPHYL1.