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My research interests are in the application of previously developed gene cloning and DNA sequencing techniques to study the expression and organization of genes in plants. Using comparative genomics of closely related species of the grass family, maize, sorghum, and rice we recently discovered that also sequences containing genes have been far more mobile than previously thought. In addition, we have also compared orthologous sequences of duplicated regions and chromosomal regions of different haplotypes of the same species. These studies provide new insights into polyploidization and hybrid vigor in plants. We also have initiated the Plant Genome Initiative at Rutgers (PGIR) to participate in whole-genome efforts of rice and maize (http://pgir.rutgers.edu/).
Our work has also environmental and nutritional applications. We are studying a
gene family that encodes proteins in maize seed, which store amino acids. For
instance, one essential amino acid, methionine, is under-represented in
maize-based animal feed and chemically synthesized at a large scale. We have
shown that a change in the regulation of the synthesis of one of the endogenous
storage proteins of maize can raise methionine to levels that makes the
chemical synthesis of methionine redundant. Farming such modified plants would
reduce chemical waste and shifts energy consumption to renewable energy.
Genetic engineering of endogenous rather than foreign genes could also
alleviate anxieties of anti-GM consumers. Recent Publications Bruggmann, R. Bharti, A.K., Gundlach, H. Lai, J., Young, S., Pontaroli, A.C., Wei, F., Haberer, G., Fuks, G., Du, C. Raymond, C., Estep, M.C., Liu, R., Bennetzen, J.L., Chan, A., Rabinowicz, P.D., Quackenbush, J., Barbazuk, W.B., Wing, R.A., Birren, B., Nusbaum, C., Rounsley, S., Mayer, K.F.X, and Messing, J. (2006). Uneven Chromosome Contraction and Expansion in the Maize Genome. Genome Research 16, 1241-1251. Du, C., Swigonova, Z., and Messing, J. (2006). Retrotranspositions in orthologous regions of closely related grass species. BMC Evol. Biol. 6, e62. Messing, J. and Dooner, H. (2006). Organization and variability of the maize genome. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 9, 157-63. Nelson, W.M., Dvorak, J., Luo, M-C., Messing, J., Wing, R.A., Soderlund, C. (2006) Efficacy of clone fingerprinting methodologies. Genomics, in Press. Xu, J. and Messing, J. (2006). Maize haplotype with a helitron-amplified cytidine deaminase gene copy. BMC Genetics 7, e52. Haberer, G., Young, S., Bharti, A.K., Gundlach, H., Raymond, C., Fuks, G., Butler, E., Wing, R.A., Rounsley, S., Birren, B., Nusbaum, C., Mayer, K.F.X, and Messing, J. (2005). Structure and Architecture of the Maize Genome. Plant Phys. 139, 1612-1624. Lai, J., Li, Y., Messing, J., and Dooner, H. (2005). Gene movement by Helitrons contributes to the haplotype variability of maize. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 102, 968-973. Ma, J., SanMiguel, P., Lai, J., Messing, J., and Bennetzen, J.L. (2005). DNA Rearrangement in Orthologous Orp Regions of the Maize, Rice and Sorghum Genomes. Genetics 170, 1209-1220. McCarty, D.R., Settles, A., Suzuki, M., Tan, B-C., Latshaw, S., Porch, T., Robin, K., Baier, J., Avigne, W., Lai, J., Messing, J., Koch, K., and Hannah, L.C. (2005). Steady-state transposon mutagenesis in inbred maize. Plant J. 44, 52-61. Messing J. (2005). The maize genome. Maydica 50, 377-386. Nelson, W.M., Bharti, A.K., Butler, E., Wei, F. Fuks, G., Kim, H-R., Wing, R.A., Messing, J. and Soderlund, C. (2005). Whole-Genome Validation of High-Information-Content Fingerprinting. Plant Phys. 139, 27-38. Rice-Chromosome-11-and-12-Sequencing-Consortia. (2005). The sequence of rice chromosome 11 and 12, rich in disease resistance genes and recent gene duplications. BMC Biology 3, e20. Swigo?ová, Z., Bennetzen, J.L., and Messing, J. (2005). Structure and evolution of the r/b chromosomal regions in rice, maize, and sorghum. Genetics 169, 891-906. The International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (2005). The map-based sequence of the rice genome. Nature 436, 793-800. Washida, H., Sugino, A., Messing, J., Esen, A., and Okita, T. W. (2004). Asymmetric localization of seed storage protein RNAs to distinct subdomains of the endoplasmic reticulum in developing maize endosperm cells. Plant and Cell Phys. 45, 1830-1837. Swigo?ová, Z., Lai, J., Ma, J., Ramakrishna, W., Llaca, V., Bennetzen, J.L., and Messing, J. (2004). Close split of maize and sorghum genome progenitors. Genome Res. 14, 1916-1923 Swigo?ová, Z., Lai, J., Ma, J., Ramakrishna, W., Llaca, V., Bennetzen, J.L., and Messing, J. (2004). On the tetraploid origin of the maize genome. Comp. Funct. Genomics 5, 281-284. Song, R., Segal, G. and Messing, J. (2004). Expression of the sorghum ten-member kafirin gene cluster in maize endosperm. Nucl. Acids Res. 32, e189. Singh, N.K., Raghuvanshi, S., Srivastava, S.K., Gaur, A., Pal, A.K., Dalal, V., Singh, A., Ghazi, I.A., Bhargav, A., Yadav, M., Dixit, A., Batra, K., Gaikwad, K., Sharma, T.R.. Mohapatra, T., Mohanty, A., Bharti, A.K., Kapur, A. Gupta, V., Kumar, D., Vij, S., Ravi, V., Khurana. Parul, Sharma, S., McCombie, D., Messing, J., Wing, R., Sasaki, T., Khurana, Paramjit, Khurana, J.P., and Tyagi, A.K. (2004). Sequence analysis of the long arm of rice chromosome 11 for rice-wheat synteny. Funct. Integrat. Genomics 4, 102-117. Messing, J., Bharti, A.K., Karlowski, W.M., Gundlach, H., Kim, H.-R., Yu, Y., Wei, F., Fuks, G., Soderlund, C.A., Mayer, K.F.X., and Wing, R.D. (2004). Sequence Composition and Genome Organization of Maize. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 101, 14349-14354. Lai, J., Ma, J., Swigo?ová, Z., Ramakrishna, W., Linton, E., Llaca, V., Tanyolac, B. Park, Y-J., Jeong, O-Y., Bennetzen, J.L., and Messing, J. (2004). Gene loss and movement in the maize genome. Genome Res. 14, 1924-1931. Lai, J., Dey, N., Kim, C-S., Bharti, A.K., Rudd, S., Mayer, K.F.X, Larkins, B.A., Becraft, P., and Messing J. (2004). Characterization of the maize endosperm transcriptome and its comparison to the rice genome. Genome Res. 14, 1932-1937. Clark, RM, Linton, E, Messing, J, and Doebley, JF (2004). "Pattern of diversity in the genomic region near the domestication gene tb1." Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101, 700-707. Hamada, S., Ishiyama, K., Salkulsingharoj, C., Choi, S-B., Wu, Y., Wang, C., Singh, S., Kawai, N., Messing, J., and Okita, T.W. (2003). Multiple RNA Transport Pathways to the Cortical Region in Developing Rice Endosperm. Plant Cell 15, 2265-2272. Song, R. and Messing, J. (2003). Gene expression of a gene family in maize based on non-collinear haplotypes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 9055-9060. Segal, G., Song, R., and Messing, J. (2003). A New Opaque Variant of Maize by a Single Dominant RNAi-Inducing Transgene. Genetics 165, 387-397. The Rice Chromosome 10 Sequencing Consortium (2003). In-depth view of structure, activity, and evolution of rice chromosome 10. Science 300, 1566-1569. Yim, Y-S., Davis, G., Duru, N., Musket, T., Linton, E. W., Messing, J. W., McMullen, M. D., Soderlund, C., Polacco, M., Gardiner, J. and Coe Jr., E. H. (2002). Characterization of three maize BAC libraries toward anchoring of the physical map to the genetic map using high density BAC filter hybridization. Plant Physiol. 130, 1686-1696. Song, R., Llaca, V., and Messing, J. (2002). Mosaic organization of orthologous sequences in grass genomes. Genome Research 12, 1549-1555. Song, R. and Messing, J. (2002). Contiguous genomic DNA sequence comprising the 19-kDa-zein gene family from Zea mays. Plant Physiol. 130, 1626-1635. Ramakrishna, W., Ma, J., SanMiguel, P., Emberton, J., Dubcovsky, J., Shiloff, B. A., Jiang, Z., Rostocks, N., Busso, C. S., Ogden, M., Linton, E., Kleinhofs, A., Devos, K. M., Messing, J., Bennetzen, J. (2002). Frequent genic rearrangements in two regions of grass genomes identified by comparative sequence analysis. Comp. Funct. Genom. 3, 165-166. Ramakrishna, W., Emberton, J., SanMiguel, P., Ogden, M., Llaca, V., Messing, J., and Bennetzen, J.L. (2002). Comparative sequence analysis of the sorghum Rph region and the maize Rp1 resistance gene complex. Plant Physiol. 130, 1728-1738. Park, W., Li, J., Song, R., Messing, J., and Chen, X. (2002). CARPEL FACTORY, a dicer homolog, and HEN1, a novel protein, act in microRNA metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana. Current Biol. 12, 1484-1495. Lai, J., and Messing, J. (2002). Increasing maize seed methionine by mRNA stability. The Plant Journal 30, 395-402. Patents Messing, J. and Lai, J. (2005). Method for producing high methionine corn seeds. US Patent #6,849,779.Lab Support
Dr. Jinsheng Lai, Research Assistant |
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Research Summary