Research Interests

This project is aimed to translate present knowledge in plant flooding responses from model plants to cabbage. We have phenotyped submergence tolerance in several cabbage cultivars, and genotyped a segregating population using ddRAD-seq. Physiological and transcriptional alteration during and post submergence were observed. We have recently mapped quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with flooding tolerance in cabbage. Functional studies for candidate genes located in this QTLs are underway.

An alternative project aimed to investigate the roles of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR; 植物根際促生菌) in promoting flooding tolerance of vegetables has been recently initiated.

This project is aimed to develop molecular markers to accelerate breeding for horticulture crops. We have published a set of high-resolution melting (HRM) markers related to peach chilling requirement.  Another set of kompetitaative allele specific PCR (KASP) marker were also developed to cultivar validation for Roselle. Recently, we are devoting to develop more markers for traits associated with peach fruit quality.

This work is published in Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(4), 1543.

This project is aimed to translate present knowledge in plant heat responses from model plants to cabbage. We have phenotyped heat tolerance in several cabbage cultivars. Accumulation of HSPs in transcript and protein levels were observed.  Physiological and transcriptional alteration during high temperature is under way.

 This work is the first study to establish a link between submergence stress and plant defense. In natural conditions, submergence commonly leads to a higher probability of pathogen infection and faster development of pathogens. Our study showed that submergence equips Arabidopsis with higher innate immunity through a transcription factor WRKY22. We suggest that plants have evolved disease defense mechanisms in response to submergence in anticipation of a higher risk of pathogen attack.

This work is published in The Plant Cell (2013) 25:2699-2713. 

We found systemic signals may be transduced from roots to trigger responses in tissues not directly subjected to hypoxia. This hypoxic systemic response is a completely novel branch of the field in hypoxic responses. Using ontological categorization for regulated genes, a systemic managing program of carbohydrate metabolism was observed, providing an example of how systemic responses might facilitate the survival of plants under flooding. We further found that ethylene and ABA signaling could be required for this systemic signaling.

This work is published in PLoS One (2011) 6:e28888

We found that HRE1 transcription factor mediates two pathways to modulate hypoxic signaling. One pathway is ethylene dependent and the other is ethylene independent.

 This work is published in Plant Physiology (2011) 156:202-212. 

The long-term goal of my Ph.D project is to reconstruct of regulatory networks associated with submergence in Arabidopsis. I have constructed a proportion of regulatory pathways as shown in figure above. The plant responses to submergence are mainly for two purposes. One is to trigger hypoxia resistance, and the other is to kick in stress resistance against stresses that usually take place with flooding, such as pathogen infection. Key hormones and transcription factors were also identified. 

https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.mot9a1v8  (Ph.D. Dissertation)

 This study revealed a fine-tuning mechanism for transcriptional regulatory pathways of NLP transcription factors in nitrate responses.  This work specifically indicated cooperated and independent roles of NLPs.  Although several transcription factors has been known to involved in nitrate responses, our achievement is the first research article to further show a transcriptional modulation controlled by multiple transcription factors in response to nitrate concentrations in plants.

This work is published in Plant Physiology (2023) 192:3049-3068.
https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiad242