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Department of Energy provides support to help understand wood formation
November 2004.

A grant of $360,000 from the Department of Energy, Energy Biosciences
Program, will fund a three-year project at Virginia Tech to understand the
genes that are important in the formation of wood. Eric P. Beers, associate
professor of horticulture in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, directs the project.

The project will use the herbaceous plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, as a model
for the study. Beers' previous research was the first to demonstrate that
Arabidopsis is a good model for studying the molecular biology of wood
formation*. Arabidopsis is a small plant with a short life cycle; a great
deal of information is available on it because its entire genome has been
sequenced. This wealth of genomic information coupled with the variety of
research techniques and other resources that have been developed for use
with Arabidopsis make this small weed a powerful model. Despite its
diminutive size, Arabidopsis produces wood that closely resembles that
produced by commercially important trees species such as poplar and pine.

"The Arabidopsis genome contains about 25,000 genes. Figuring out which ones
are required for a plant to produce wood is the challenge we face," Beers
said.

Graduate student Chengsong Zhao measured the genes expressed in wood
isolated from Arabidopsis using technology available at the Virginia
Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. The technology is capable of
measuring expression of all 25,000 Arabidopsis genes simultaneously. With
this information, Beers and his collaborator Allan W. Dickerman, research
assistant professor at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, were able to
reduce the number of possible wood formation genes from 25,000 possibilities
down to less than 500.

"From among this relatively small number of possible wood-forming genes, we
concentrate on the genes that code for transcription factors because they
function as master regulators and thereby have profound impacts on
developmental processes," Beers said. By identifying transcription factors
that were expressed only in woody tissue, they were able to select the genes
most likely to regulate wood development. Chengsong Zhao demonstrated that
one of the identified wood transcription factors showed potential as a
regulator of xylem development. Xylem is the wood-forming tissue in plants.

"By further manipulating this gene and others we have identified as
potential regulators of wood formation, we will have a better understanding
of how plants produce this valuable commodity upon which we all rely," said
Beers.

[www.unirel.vt.edu]

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