Research Focus

Establishment of protein-DNA interaction core facility

Protein-DNA interactions play key roles in all cellular processes and functions including DNA transcription, packaging, replication, and repair. Identifying and examining the nature of these interactions is crucial to understand the molecular basis of how these fundamental processes take place. Our current development strategy on this new core facility is to provide technical service to discover the cis- or trans- acting factors that participate the gene regulation processes using biological and biochemical approaches. For investigation the protein regulators, the preys and baits in yeast one- or two- hybrid systems will be constructed for the protein identification purposes. For localization of DNA sequences that the protein factor associate with, the chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) technique is provided for survey the sequences in genes that are targets for specific binding proteins. Our future approach will use reporter gene system in yeast and combining error-prone PCR to introduce mutations into either member of this interacting pair, and homologous recombination is used to return the mutagenized sequences to their proper sequence contexts in vivo. Altered expression of the reporter gene is then used as a screen or selection for mutations conferring the desired phenotype, such as reductions or increases in the stability of the DNA–protein complex.

Beneficial endophytes in plants

Starting from 2009, my research interests focus on investigating the beneficial microbial entities that associate with plants.

Endophytes are microbes that live within living tissues of plants. In most cases their relationship with the host plant is symbiotic and probably mutualistic. The microbes can be applied as biological agents that confer crops with resistance or tolerance toward pathogen infections or abiotic stresses. Our current selected biological systems are Phalaenopsis orchids and the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiotic fungi, Rhizoctonia solani. The recent studies have shown that the symbiosis status of Rhizoctonia solani spp. in orchid roots dramatically confer the resistance to viral amplification in tissues such as Cymidium mosaic virus (CymMV) and Odontoglossum ringspot virus (ORSV). My research subject is employing functional genomic approach to decode the cue for such anti-viral merits. Three major tasks are proposed for the studies: (1) confirmation on anti-viral efficacy derived from mycrrohizae applications; (2) timing relationship of anti-rival efficacy and the symbiosis status, and (3) establishment of subtractive EST (expression sequence tag) libraries derived from viral infected tissues under symbiosis status to reveal functional genes of interests.