ILSC Monthly Seminar: January 2011

Nectaries and Nectar: Functional Genomics and Biochemistry

Speaker: Dr. Clay Carter; Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Integrated Biosciences Graduate Program, University of Minnesota Duluth

Time/Place: Thursday, Jan 27th at 3:00 pm, 130 SMed

Abstract: Floral nectaries are the secretory organs responsible for nectar production. Despite their central role in plant-pollinator interactions, very little is known about how nectaries synthesize and secrete nectar at the molecular level. As such, one of the major goals of our lab is to identify the genes and corresponding biochemical processes required for nectar production in the agriculturally important Brassicaceae family. To address this goal, we identified over seventy Arabidopsis thaliana genes as having largely nectary-specific expression profiles via microarray analysis. It is hypothesized that these nectary-specific genes are required for nectary development and/or function. The roles these genes play in nectar production are being systematically examined in both Arabidopsis and its relative Brassica rapa (oilseed rape) through candidate gene knockout and overexpression studies, as well as through other mechanistic investigations. These studies have led to the first identification and characterization of genes required for nectary function for any plant species.

2013

2012

January: David D. Thomas
February: Elizabeth Austin-Minor
March: Juliette Lecomte
April: David Millar
May: Lukas Tamm
September: David Millar
September: Dongping Zhong
October: Jonathan V. Rocheleau
November: Yevgenya Grinblat
December: Michael Graner

2011

2010