CEPCEB Members

Hailing Jin Assistant Professor Department of Plant Pathology 3447 Boyce Hall University of California Riverside, California 92521 Phone: (951) 827-7995 Fax: (951) 827-4294   Areas of Expertise Small RNA-mediated Gene Regulation Plant Immunity
Background Signal Transduction of Plant Innate Immunity Current Lab Personnel Selected Publications (Bibliography page)

Background

I received my B.S. in Genetics from Wuhan University, China in 1991 and my Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Genetics from the National Lab, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1996. As a postdoctoral fellow, I worked in Dr. Cathie Martin's lab at John Innes Center , UK , where I participated in the functional genomics consortium to study the functions of all R2R3 MYB genes in Arabidopsis. There, I identified a MYB negative regulator, AtMYB4, that controls plant UV stress response. I also identified another transcription factor, AtMYB16, which plays an essential role in controlling plant cell shape. Since I have been always interested in plant-microbial interaction, I joined Dr. Barbara Baker’s lab in 2000 as a specialist, and focused on plant disease resistance signaling pathways. By using a powerful technique—virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS), I identified several genes that affect one or more disease resistance pathways, such as NPK1, MEK2, SIPK and WIPK etc. In August 2004, I became an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UCR, to continue my study on the gene regulation and signal transduction in plant immunity.

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The Regulatory Roles of Small RNAs in Plant Immunity

My laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms of small RNA-mediated gene regulation in plant disease resistance and defense responses. Small RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), have emerged as important regulators of eukaryotic gene expression by guiding mRNA cleavage, translational inhibition or chromatin modification. siRNA-induced gene silencing is a conserved regulatory process that has evolved as an antiviral defense mechanism in plants and animals. However, it is not known whether host cells also use siRNAs as an antibacterial or antifungal defense mechanism in eukaryotes. The discovery of a bacteria-induced Arabidopsis siRNA in my lab provided the first example of the regulatory role of siRNAs in bacterial resistance and plant immunity. Functional analysis of the siRNA target has led to the identification of a putative negative regulator of the resistance gene RPS2 signaling pathway. This study suggests a broader role for siRNAs in host-defense mechanisms.

The goal of my research is to identify and characterize pathogen-inducible endogenous small RNAs and to understand their regulatory mechanisms in gene expression reprogramming during the host defense responses. We aim to identify novel signaling components within disease resistance network and to elucidate the crosstalk between multiple signal transduction pathways. A combination of functional genomics, molecular genetics and biochemical approaches are applied.

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Current Lab Personnel

• Assistant Specialist: Chellappan Padmanabhan
• Postdoctoral Fellow: Surekha Katiyar Agarwal
• Postdoctoral Fellow: Ying Lou
• Graduate Students: Shang Gao (Plant Pathology)
  

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Selected Publications (Bibliography page)

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