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Assistant Professor of Plant Biology
Department of Plant Biology http://farrelab.openwetware.org/
Plant Biology Department |
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Research
Our goal is to understand how circadian clocks work and why they play such a key role in growth and development.
We study the regulation and role of circadian rhythms in plants, which as sessile and autotrophic organisms rely heavily on daily and seasonal changes for their development and growth. Recent findings show that the appropriate resonance of internal rhythms with daily environmental rhythms optimizes plant growth and survival. During the last few years, a large number of clock components have been identified in plants. However, knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in plant circadian clocks lags behind studies in other organisms such as Drosophila and Cyanobacteria. Although circadian clocks share a basic architecture among different taxa, they differ in their molecular components. Thus the study of circadian rhythms in plants will help define not only their role on plant specific processes but also the design principles of circadian oscillators.
Circadian clock:
Farre EM and Kay SA (2007) PRR7 Protein levels are regulated by light and the circadian clock in Arabidopsis. Plant J 52 (3):548–560.
Para A, Farre EM, Imaizumi T, Pruneda-Paz J, Harmon FG, Kay SA (2007). PRR3 is a vascular regulator of TOC1 stability in the Arabidopsis circadian clock. Plant Cell 19:3462-3473.
*Zeilinger MN, *Farre EM, Taylor SR, Kay SA and Doyle FJ III (2006) A novel computational model of the circadian clock in Arabidopsis that incorporates PRR7 and PRR9. Mol Syst Biol 2: 58.
*Equal authorship; News and Views by Ueda HR (2006) Molecular Systems Biology 2.
Farre EM, Harmer SL, Harmon FG, Yanovsky MJ, Kay SA. (2005) Overlapping and distinct roles of PRR7 and PRR9 in the Arabidopsis circadian clock. Curr Biol 15(1):47-54.
Metabolism:
Farre EM, Fernie AR, Willmitzer L. (2008) Analysis of subcellular metabolite levels of potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum) displaying alterations in cellular or extracellular sucrose metabolism. Metabolomics 4:161-170.
Farre EM, Tech S, Trethewey RN, Fernie AR, Willmitzer L. (2006) Subcellular pyrophosphate metabolism in developing tubers of potato (Solanum tuberosum). Plant Mol Biol. 62(1-2):165-79.
Tiessen A, Hendriks JHM, Stitt M, Branscheid A, Gibon Y, Farre EM, Geigenberger P (2002) Starch synthesis in potato tubers is regulated by post-translational redox modification of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase: A novel regulatory mechanism linking starch synthesis to the sucrose supply. Plant Cell (14) 2191-2213.
Farre EM, Tiessen A, Roessner U, Geigenberger P, Trethewey RN, Willmitzer L (2001) Analysis of the compartmentation of glycolytic intermediates, nucleotides, sugars, organic acids, amino acids, and sugar alcohols in potato tubers using a nonaqueous fractionation method. Plant Physiology 127: 685-700.
Farre EM, Bachmann A, Willmitzer L, Trethewey R (2001) Sprouting of potato tubers is significantly accelerated by the expression of a bacterial pyrophosphatase. Nature Biotech 19(3):268-272.
Farre EM, Geigenberger P, Willmitzer L and Trethewey RN (2000) A possible role for pyrophosphate in the coordination of cytososlic and plastididal carbon metabolism within the potato tuber. Plant Physiology 123: 681-688.
