By Lee Nguyen, Biotechnology ’14

Parasitic plants pose a serious threat to the world’s agriculture and environment.  Understanding the parasitism signaling pathway will help identify methods of pest control as well as pest resistance. One gene that enters the parasitic signaling pathway early is TvQR1, a gene that encodes an enzyme that catalyzes an oxidation-reduction reaction crucial for development of a root like outgrowth called a haustorium. In parasitic plants, TvQR1 is transcriptionally activated upon host contact and my project is to study the promoter of this gene, pQR1, in a nonparasitic plant. (more…)