Gilliham lab blog 2012-2015

New website for Gilliham Lab

2015-07-30T05:19:00.000-07:00

Please see my new lab web pages at www.plantransig.com

GABA signalling in plants

2015-07-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

See our latest paper published in Nature Comms on the first identification of GABA gated anion channels in plants.

A new soy source for crop salt tolerance

2015-01-07T13:09:00.005-08:00

Our collaborative research project with researchers at the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences has been published in the Plant Journal as a feature article.

Identification of genes that improve crop salt tolerance is essential for the effective utilization of saline soils by agriculture. Our findings identify a gene that has great potential for the improvement of salt tolerance of commercial soybean varieties. The paper outlines how natural selection and domestication has led to mutations in the sequence of the gene and in many cases loss of its function. This has led to a loss in salt tolerance in many commercial varieties of soybean.

Fine mapping was used in a soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] population derived from the commercial cultivars Tiefeng 8 and 85-140, to identify GmSALT3 (SALt Tolerance-associated gene on chromosome 3), a dominant gene associated with limiting shoot sodium ion (Na+) accumulation and a substantial enhancement in soybean salt tolerance. This illustration shows the phenotypic variation between Tiefeng 8 and 85-140 treated with 200 mM NaCl for 18 d (top left); the tissue localisation of GmSALT3 within root phloem- and xylem-associated cells in the salt-tolerant parent Tiefeng 8 (top right); the subcellular localisation of GmSALT3 to ER in Nicotiana benthamiana protoplasts (bottom left); and, the distribution of different sequences for the GmSALT3 gene across China (bottom right).

The identified gene is from the cation-proton exchanger family which is expressed in vascular associated cells of the root. It produces a protein likely to be present on the ER. The exact role of this protein in conferring salt tolerance is still under investigation.

By studying the sequence of the gene in 184 soybean varieties and 57 wild soybean it is shown that natural variation in the sequence amongst different soybean has led to loss of function of this gene in certain areas. The geographical origin of the soybean with a loss in salt tolerance coincides with areas of low soil salinity.

The non-functional gene has entered many breeding programs and is consequently present in commercial varieties of soybean. Our findings will allow breeders to reintroduce the functional gene through either conventional or GM techniques, to improve commercial soybean salt tolerance.

This research has been supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China and National Key Technologies R&D Program in the 12th 5-Year Plan and the Australian Research Council.

See further info here in these releases from the PEB and the University of Adelaide.

Lead Chinese Researchers - Dr Rongxia Guan (first author) and Prof. Lijuan Qiu (Soybean genetics program leader) at the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Assoc. Prof. Matthew Gilliham and PhD Student Yue Qu (joint-first author) ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, University of Adelaide).

A great occasion for the lab!

2014-04-30T00:24:00.004-07:00

Congratulations to new Drs Bo Xu and Manchun Zhao, and Masters degree recipient Yue Qu all graduating yesterday.

Manchun's PhD thesis was entitled "CO2 and ion transport through plant aquaporins" (supervised by Steve Tyerman) and Bo Xu's "Characterisation of a novel calcium sensor in Arabidopsis".

Yue Qu's Masters thesis was on the "Salt tolerance mechanisms in soybean"

Some photos from the day, more to follow.

Left to right - Prof Steve Tyerman, Dr Manchun Zhao, Dr Bo Xu, Dr Matt Gilliham, Mr Yue Qu

Matt and Weasley!

Best Masters Student in Plant Biotechnology

2014-04-28T04:35:00.000-07:00

Yue Qu, tonight picked up the Best Master's in Plant Biotechnology student tonight at the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine Prize giving, having come top of his year group. Congratulations to Yue for his hard work over the last couple of years - especially his year long project in our lab looking into the salinity tolerance mechanisms of soybean.

The great news for us is that Yue has also secured a PhD scholarship with us to continue his research.

We were lucky to have two great students this year from the Masters course, with Sana Ullah who gained new insights into the control of hypocotyl elongation in Arabidopsis. Sana is now in New Zealand with his family and is looking to continue his very promising research career.

Yue follows in the footsteps of other students from this program to join the lab for their PhD. This includes Brad Hocking and Bo Xu - who also received this prize for 2008 and 2009 respectively - and the equally as capable Jiaen Qiu who is currently writing up her PhD thesis.

Prize sponsors were the ACPFG

Yue Qu with Eileen Scott, Head of School

ARC Centre for Excellence in Plant Energy Biology

2014-02-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

Our new cross-disciplinary centre, involving researchers at the University of Western Australia, La Trobe, the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide has been funded from 2014 to 2020.

Looking forward to getting started once all the funding agreements are signed!

The focus of the centre is examining how plants use energy, particularly under stress, and see if there are ways in which we can streamline these processes in crop plants to improve yield.

Our new website is now active and is currently being populated, it will eventually contain full details of our novel approaches and our sub-programs that are designed to get a handle on the key drivers of plant energy use.

Chief Investigators of the new centre are:

UWA - Proteomics, Signalling and Epigenetics
Harvey Millar (Centre Director)
Ian Small
Ryan Lister
Rana Munns

La Trobe - Metabolic signalling
Jim Whelan

ANU - Ecophysiology, natural variation and signalling
Barry Pogson
Owen Atkin
Justin Borevitz

Adelaide - Transport and signalling
Steve Tyerman
Matt Gilliham

In a great piece of foresight at the ARC, they have also funded an equivalent centre in translational photosynthesis. We plan to collaborate with these researchers. The plan in 7 years is that we can find ways to not only improve energy use efficiency in plants, but we can also identify ways in which we can increase the amount of energy that plants can capture through photosynthesis.

Busy and exciting times!

ARC Future Fellowship 2013

2013-11-10T01:53:00.002-08:00

Matt is delighted with having been awarded a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship. His four year fellowship will fund the lab to study the mechanisms of chloride transport in plants, particularly its role in the salinity tolerance of crop plants and how it interacts with nitrate transport pathways to define efficiency in nitrogen uptake. Read more here...

For the stats behind the scheme, see here. As always, very tough competition this year.

PCP lab @ COMBIO 2013

2013-08-21T17:15:00.001-07:00

Sunita Ramesh, postdoc in the lab, has been invited to speak at COMBIO in Perth in the nutrient transport session.

PCP lab @ ICAR 2013, Sydney

2013-02-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

Matt has been invited to speak in the abiotic stress session at the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research to be held in June in Sydney.

PCP lab @ IWPMB

2013-02-27T15:37:00.000-08:00

A strong attendance from the PCP lab at one of our major conferences. Now in its sixteenth installment the International Workshop in Plant Membrane Biology will be held in Japan in late March 2013.

Sam Henderson, Jiaen Qiu and Bo Xu will be presenting posters, and Sunita Ramesh is giving a talk and a poster.

Matt is chairing a workshop session and talking.

Thanks to the GWRDC for supporting Sam's travel, and the GRDC and IWPMB for supporting Jiaen and Weasley's trip.

Hydroponics made easy

2013-02-21T16:03:00.002-08:00

Our protocol paper outlining how to make an adaptable and versatile hydroponics system useful for many downstream assays has just been published online at Plant Methods, http://www.plantmethods.com/content/9/1/4 . We designed it for use with microeclectrode techniques and the LiCOR whole plant chamber for photosytnthesis measurements but it is very useful for any kind of physiological or molecular assay as the whole shoot and root can be accessed at any stage.

The real advantage of this particular technique is the ease of handling the plants throughout the growth, and the compatibility with many physiological assays. The paper contains many tips and tricks for getting good plant growth in the lab in general, including solution design and macros for measuring growth from images of the plants. The technique is useful for other plants too.

In the first week of being online the paper was viewed over 1000 times and is currently ranked second in terms of impact as measured by altmetrics for all Plant Methods papers, first for papers of a similar age.

Here is a video that accompanies the paper, outlining the technique.

Go8 China-Australia Fellow

2012-11-25T18:20:00.000-08:00

Matt Gilliham received one of 16 nationally awarded Go8 Fellowships to help facilitate collaboration with leading Chinese laboratories.

He visited Beijing. China from 16th-24th November, and it was a very enjoyable and productive visit. During his visit he gave presentations and discussed projects of mutual interest.

New collaborations with 3 laboratories have been establish and are likely to involve exchange of
students and staff between the China and Australia in the near future.

These collaborations are with:

Professor Lijuan Qiu, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Agricultural Academy of Sciences
(Salt tolerance in soybean)

Professor Lai-hua Liu, China Agricultural University
(Plant Glutamate Receptors)

Professor Wenhao Zhang, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
(Plant aluminium tolerance)

He also snuck in a visit to the Great Wall...photos to follow.

2012 SA Tall Poppy Award

2012-08-23T18:17:00.002-07:00

Matthew accepting his award from
the South Australian Governor
Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce.

Dr Matthew Gilliham was named as a SA Tall Poppy of Science at a ceremony at Government House. This is one of eight awards that recognise the State's best early career researchers. For more details see this blog from the Waite Research Institute.

The Tall Poppy campaign, established by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science (AIPS), promotes public awareness of Australia's intellectual achievements. These awards acknowledge outstanding work by early career researchers and the significance of their research to the broader community.

PCP Lab @ COMBIO

2012-08-17T21:39:00.001-07:00

Talks will be given by PCP Lab PhD Students Bo Xu (salt tolerance in wheat) on Wednesday morning and Sam Henderson (salt tolerance in grapevine) on Thursday afternoon at COMBIO this September. Other members will be giving posters too, Bo Li and Jiaen Qiu (salt tolerance in Arabidopsis), Brad Hocking (composition of grape cell walls) and Sunita Ramesh (control of organic anion efflux).

Matt Gilliham will also be co-charing a symposium on plant nutrient and water transport with Mel Zeppel from Monash on Wednesday morning. Come along and hear some cool stuff.

Invited speaker @ Food Security 2012

2012-08-13T20:37:00.004-07:00

Food Security: Science, Sustainability and Governance, to be held on 27-28 September 2012 will address the challenges facing food security and will bring together business, industry, government, and academics to discuss practical solutions for local and global concerns.

http://www.informa.com.au/conferences/food-conference/food-security-science-sustainability-and-governance

Salt tolerant wheat - Nature Biotechnology

2012-07-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Our paper on improving the salt tolerance of wheat was published by Nature Biotechnology in March. It is the first study to show a considerable improvement in the salinity tolerance of a cereal crop in the field through the manipulation of a particular gene - we demonstrated a 25% increase in grain yield compared to the parental variety. The work was the result of a strong collaboration with our colleagues at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra, Rana Munns and Richard James, and other research agencies including the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics.

The paper has since received considerable interest from around the world, both from the scientific community and the media.

For a lay summary of the work see our Scientific American article.

A few of the media stories and links to audio see below.

Austrade
BBC World Service (after 8m20s)

ABC Radio Bush Telegraph
ABC Radio AM
ABC Radio National
The Australian
The Times of India
New Scientist

Also an interesting report that includes the view of the farmer involved in the study.

Reportage

Invited talk @ 4th Grapevine Research Co-ordination Network Meeting

2012-06-19T06:24:00.001-07:00

Matt Gilliham will give an invited talk at the 4th Annual Grapevine Research Co-ordination meeting on rootstock genomics. The meeting will be held in Corvallis Oregon in July 2012. See here for the meeting website.

Invited talk @ ASPB in US

2012-06-13T04:13:00.000-07:00

Matt Gilliham will give an invited talk at the ASPB meeting in Houston Texas on the 21st July in the Metal Stress symposium on the role of HKT in salinity tolerance in wheat. http://my.aspb.org/?page=Meeting_MiniSymposia

PCP Lab @ the Gordon Conference on Salt Stress

2012-06-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

Sam Henderson (PhD Student) working on salinity tolerance in grapevines and Steve Tyerman (COE CI), on root to shoot hydraulic signalling, will present their work at the Gordon Conference in Hong Kong at the end of June. Our collaborator Rana Munns from CSIRO PI will also present a talk, which will include our work on improving the salt tolerance of wheat.

Wine science innovation award

2012-03-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

Matt Gilliham was the recipient of the Viticulture & Oenology 2012 Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry awarded by the Commonwealth Government and sponsored by the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation.

The award will fund a project that will map the genetic make-up of a grapevine rootstock that is vitally important to the wine industry using next generation sequencing. By mapping the genome it will provide the first step in identifying the genes that confer the favourable traits of rootstocks such as phylloxera and nematode resistance, and drought and salinity tolerance. This will also allow the identification of markers for these traits and the acceleration of rootstock breeding programs.

The project will be carried out in collaboration with researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (Prof. Jim Whelan and Dr Estelle Giraud) and the University of Verona, Italy (Profs. Mario Pezzotti & Massimo Delledone, Dr. Alberto Ferrarini). The team based at the Waite Campus includes Sam Henderson, a graduate student in the lab, and Rob and Mandy Walker at CSIRO Plant Industry.

Here are links with additional information.

Waite Research Institute
University of Adelaide
ABC Radio - audio coming soon