Dr. Juergen Ehlting

• BIOL 453 Plant Stress Physiology
• BIOL 361 Molecular Genetics

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Researcher: Juergen Ehlting

Plants produce a vast array of natural products, or secondary metabolites, that fulfill an equally wide range of adaptive functions in plant stress responses and during development. This holds true in particular for long-living trees, which are exposed to ever changing abiotic and biotic stresses throughout their live time.

The elucidation of complete plant genomes (including the poplar tree genome) showed that gene families encoding putative enzymes involved in secondary metabolism are drastically enlarged compared to other eukaryotes. This genomic information, together with large scale gene expression (microarray), protein and metabolite abundance data allows now to apply the tools of functional genomics to elucidate plant natural product pathways.

The shikimate pathway leads to the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids. These are not only important for protein biosynthesis, but these and almost intermediates of the shikimate pathway are precursors for a wide range of natural product. Poplar accumulates large amounts of derivatives of this pathway, namely lignin, salicylates, and hydroxycannamoyl esters. We aim to understand how their biosynthesis is achieved and how carbon flow through the shikimate pathway into the diverse branch pathways is regulated. This research is supported by grants from NSERC and CFI.

We use bioinformatic based approaches to identify candidate genes of interest; these include similarity based and gene co-expression based approaches, such as phylogenetic reconstructions and microarray expression profiling, to dissect gene families and identify candidate genes of interest. These candidate genes are then analyzed using reverse genetics and reverse biochemistry to identify and characterize their biochemical and physiological functions.

These classes of compounds have a large impact on the exploitation capacity of poplar wood for the production of biofuels and we are part of a consortium of researchers –funded by GenomeBC - aiming on a broader scale to optimize poplar as a feedstock for biofuel production.

David Shen (MSc), Eve Kenny (MSc), Kaela Whittingham (Undergrad), Liberty Evans-Agnew (Undergrad), Callah McCarroll (Undergrad), Jacob Smallboy (Undergrad), Michaela Onasick (Undergrad)