Maize Anther Development at the Cellular Level
Understanding anther development is fundamental to plant biology from both basic and applied science perspectives. As the source of pollen and male gametes, anther development is a key factor in controlled crop breeding and hybrid seed production. Maize is ideal for investigating reproduction as it has separate male tassels and female ear inflorescences, hundreds of large anthers per tassel, and a large collection of male-sterile. In the Walbot Lab I am investigating maize anther development with single-cell RNA-sequencing in order to better understand the development and specific roles of each somatic cell type that underlie male-fertility.
Genome evolution of the model fern Ceratopteris richardii
Ceratopteris richardii has long been a model for investigating and teaching plant biology (e.g., C-Fern® Curriculum). Ceratopteris is typical of most ferns in having a large genome with numerous chromosomes (1C = 9.6 Gb; n = 39) and being homosporous (producing a single spore type with potentially bisexual gametophytes). Ceratopteris also has independent, free-living haploid gametophytes and diploid sporophytes unlike seed plants in which the gametophyte is dependent upon the dominant sporophyte. As such, Ceratopteris has served as a model system to investigate plant life history traits, reproductive biology, development, evolution, space biology, and genome biology in research labs across the globe.
As a continuation of my Ph.D. research in the Soltis Lab, I led the analysis of the Ceratopteris genome which was sequenced by the Joint Genomes Institute via the Open Green Genomes Project (PI: Jim Leebens-Mack). We discovered a history of remarkably dynamic genome evolution including rapid changes in genome content and structure, massive gene loss, rampant tandem duplications, and multiple horizontal gene transfers from bacteria.
The genome assembly is publicly available at Phytozome and our results are currently in press at Nature Plants.
