Maloof Lab

Room 2115 Section of Plant Biology 1002 Life Sciences, One Shields Ave. University of California Davis Davis, CA 95616 Contact

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Research How do organisms adapt to different environments? We are interested in understanding the genetic and molecular changes that take place as organisms adapt to different environments. Which genes change, what types of genetic changes occur, and how do these changes affect the organism at the biochemical, physiological, and ecological levels? Since plants are rooted in their environment, they are particularly adept at coping with their environment. Furthermore different species, and populations within species, have adapted to different environments. Therefore plants are well suited for studying adaptation mechanisms. Because light is fundamental to plant growth, we have focused on how plants sense and respond to environmental light cues. We are focused on light perception by the phytochrome photoreceptors. Phytochromes sense red and far-red light and provide information about the density of neighboring foliage (among other things). We work on Arabidopsis thaliana and related species and use a combination of molecular genetic, quantitative genetic, and molecular evolution techniques. Please see naturalvariation.org for information about some of our collaborators who are taking similar approaches. read more...

Lab Members Leonela Carriedo Julin Maloof Kazunari Nozue Amanda Schrager Danelle Seymour An Tat Upendra Kumar Devisetty Daniel Fulop Former Members Daniele Filiault Jose M Jimenez-Gomez Patricia Mueller-Moule Matthew Schultz See all former members...

Selected Publications Jiménez-Gómez JM, Wallace AD, and Maloof JN. Network analysis identifies ELF3 as a QTL for the shade avoidance response in Arabidopsis. PLoS Genet. 2010 Sep 9;6(9):e1001100. DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1001100 | Brock MT, Maloof JN, and Weinig C. Genes underlying quantitative variation in ecologically important traits: PIF4 (phytochrome interacting factor 4) is associated with variation in internode length, flowering time, and fruit set in Arabidopsis thaliana. Mol Ecol. 2010 Mar;19(6):1187-99. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04538.x | Jiménez-Gómez JM and Maloof JN. Sequence diversity in three tomato species: SNPs, markers, and molecular evolution. BMC Plant Biol. 2009 Jul 3;9:85. DOI:10.1186/1471-2229-9-85 | Filiault DL, Wessinger CA, Dinneny JR, Lutes J, Borevitz JO, Weigel D, Chory J, and Maloof JN. Amino acid polymorphisms in Arabidopsis phytochrome B cause differential responses to light. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Feb 26;105(8):3157-62. DOI:10.1073/pnas.0712174105 | Nozue K, Covington MF, Duek PD, Lorrain S, Fankhauser C, Harmer SL, and Maloof JN. Rhythmic growth explained by coincidence between internal and external cues. Nature. 2007 Jul 19;448(7151):358-61. DOI:10.1038/nature05946 | see complete list...	Announcements Group meeting, journal clubs, and seminars
	Funding NSF Plant Genome Research Program GEPR: Elucidating gene networks regulating development in tomato Molecular evolutionary genetics of crop and weed responses to crowding (2002-2008) Human Frontier Science Program (2004-2008)
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