Title: The Evolution of Strigolactone and Karrikin Signaling
David Nelson, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside
Biography:
Dr. David Nelson received his PhD in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006. As a postdoctoral researcher with Steven Smith at the University of Western Australia and Winslow Briggs at the Carnegie Institution for Science, he pioneered the genetics of karrikin signaling and established an unexpected link between karrikins and strigolactones. He became a faculty member at the University of Georgia in 2011, before moving to the University of California, Riverside in 2016.
Abstract:
Strigolactones are a recently recognized class of plant hormones. In addition to controlling many aspects of plant development, strigolactones are exuded into soil. Here strigolactones may have beneficial effects by recruiting interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, or harmful effects by triggering germination of root parasitic plants in the Orobanchaceae. Karrikins are chemicals found in smoke that activate germination of many species after a fire. Karrikin molecules share a butenolide moiety with strigolactones, but are otherwise chemically and functionally distinct. Remarkably, strigolactone and karrikin signaling pathways are composed of paralogous receptors and downstream effectors, and share a common requirement for an F-box protein, indicating a shared evolutionary origin. In this talk, Dr. Nelson will discuss his lab's investigations of how strigolactone and karrikin pathways evolved distinct functions.
Time: Tuesday, Mar. 27th, 2018, 16:30-17:30
Venue: New Biology Building, Room 143
Host: Dr. Daoxin Xie
举办单位：生命科学联合中心
