Welcome!

arabidopsisThe Plant Gene Expression Center (PGEC) conducts fundamental research in plant molecular biology. Researchers are elucidating the signal transduction pathways responsible for the perception of environmental and cellular cues. We are exploring disease resistance, light perception, the circadian clock, vegetative growth and the plant-associated microbiome. Essential genes and the networks within which they operate are elucidated using molecular, genetic and biochemical approaches.

The PGEC is a collaboration of the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Plant & Microbial Biology Department of the University of California, Berkeley. The Center's principal investigators are faculty at UC Berkeley, and research opportunities are available in our laboratories for graduate and undergraduate students.

New Paper from the Harmon Lab

Interspecific analysis of diurnal gene regulation in panicoid grasses identifies known and novel regulatory motifs, by Xianjun Lai, Claire Bendix, Lang Yan, Yang Zhang, James C. Schnable & Frank G. Harmon, published in BMC Genomics. Click Read more for the link to the paper and to read the Summary. Posted 09/03/2020.

New Paper from Jake Brunkard and Pat Zambryski

Published in PNAS: TOR dynamically regulates plant cell–cell transport, by Jacob O. Brunkard, Min Xu, M. Regina Scarpin, Snigdha Chatterjee, Elena A. Shemyakina, Howard M. Goodman, and Patricia Zambryski. Click Read more to see the Significance Statement and Abstract. Posted 02/12/2020.

Lewis Lab Postdoc Awarded Fellowship

Dr. Maël Baudin was awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship. He will work in Thomas Kroj's lab in Montpellier, France, where he will focus on functional and biochemical characterization of effector proteins from the rice pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae, Posted 02/11/2020.

New Paper from the Quail Lab

Published in PNAS: Central clock components modulate plant shade avoidance by directly repressing transcriptional activation activity of PIF proteins, by Yu Zhang, Anne Pfeiffer, James M. Tepperman, Jutta Dalton-Roesler, Pablo Leivar, Eduardo Gonzalez Grandio, and Peter H. Quail. Click Read more to see the Significance Statement and Abstract. Posted 02/11/2020.

Congrats to Wilson Horner!

Wilson passed in Qualifying Exam in December. He is co-advised by Jake Brunkard and Sarah Hake. Wilson's Ph.D. project is focused on TOR dynamics. Posted 01/15/2010.

Two New Papers from the Lewis Lab

model for zar1 activation
Postdocs Maël Baudin and Karl Schreiber's paper about the ZAR1 immune receptor, in Plant Journal, "Structure–function analysis of ZAR1 immune receptor reveals key molecular interactions for activity", in collaboration with Eliza Martin and Andrei-Jose Petrescu from the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Postdocs Yuan Chen and Claire Bendix's paper about Huanglongbing disease (citrus greening), in Molecular Plant--Microbe Interactions, "Comparative genomics screen identifies microbe-associated molecular patterns from Candidatus Liberibacter sp. that elicit immune responses in plants". Click Read more for links to the papers. Posted 01/15/2020.

Hake Lab Postdocs "Moving On Up"

icon for leiboff lab
In December Annis Richardson took a post as a Lecturer in the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. In May, Sam Leiboff will start as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State. Click Read more for more details. Posted 01/15/2020.

New Paper from Jake Brunkard and Pat Zambryski in Plant Physiology 

Plasmodesmata (PD) are essential for plant development, but little is known about their regulation. Several studies have linked PD transport to chloroplast-centered signaling networks, but the physiological significance of this connection remains unclear. In their paper "Plant cell-cell transport via plasmodesmata is regulated by light and the circadian clock", they show that light promotes PD transport during the day, but is not sufficient to increase rates of PD transport at night, suggesting a circadian gating mechanism. Silencing expression of the core circadian clock gene LHY/CCA1 allows light to strongly promote PD transport during subjective night, confirming that the canonical plant circadian clock controls this light response. Click Read More for a link to the paper. Posted 10/14/2019.

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