Udvardi Lab

Research

Research in the group addresses several issues in plant science related to agriculture, including: how plants obtain macronutrients, especially nitrogen, from the soil or via symbiosis with bacteria; how perennial plants recycle and conserve nutrients during shoot senescence; how plants respond and acclimate to environmental stress such as drought and salinity; and how plants control storage metabolism during seed development. Much of the group's work involves the model legume, Medicago truncatula, and ties into research on forage legumes being performed in other Noble Foundation labs. Legumes are a primary source of food and feed for humans and livestock. Legumes are also a key component of sustainable agriculture because of their ability to 'fix' atmospheric molecular nitrogen, via symbiosis with bacteria called rhizobia, into ammonium, which is used for plant growth instead of industrial N-fertilizer.

We also work on switchgrass, a prairie grass with significant potential as a bioenergy crop. We are developing tools for functional genomics and using these to identify genes that control nutrient remobilization during senescence, with a view to minimizing losses of macronutrients from the soil with the harvested biomass. Natural variation amongst switchgrass ecotypes for nutrient use efficiency is also being assessed to the same end.

Personnel

Michael Udvardi
Professor

Rahul Bahulikar
Postdoctoral Fellow

Yun Kang
Research Associate

Igor Kryvoruchko
Postdoctoral Fellow

Catalina Pislariu
Postdoctoral Fellow

Kyohei Shibasaki
Postdoctoral Fellow

Senjuti Sinharoy
Postdoctoral Fellow

Mark Taylor
Research Associate

Ivone Torres-Jerez
Senior Research Associate

Jerome Verdier
Research Scientist

Eric Worley
Research Associate

Jiading Yang
Postdoctoral Fellow

Jiyi Zhang
Research Associate

Shulan Zhang
Research Assistant

Young, N. D. , Debellé, F., Oldroyd, G., Geurts, R., Cannon, S. B. , Udvardi, M. K., Benedito, V. A., Mayer, K.F.X., Gouzy, J., Schoof, H., Van de Peer, Y., Proost, S., Cook, D. R. , Meyers, B.C., Spannagl, M., Cheung, F., De Mita, S., Krishnakumar, V., Gundlach, H., Zhou, S., Mudge, J., Bharti, A.K., Murray, J., Naoumkina, M., Rosen, B., Silverstein, K.A.T., Tang, H., Rombauts, S., Zhao, P. X., Zhou, P., Barbe, V., Bardou, P., Bechner, M., Bellec, A., Berger, A., Bergès, H., Bidwell, T. G., Bisseling, T., Choisne, N., Couloux, A., Denny, R., Deshpande, S., Dai, X., Doyle, J.J., Dudez, A-M., Farmer, A. D., Fouteau, S., Franken, C., Gibelin, C., Gish, J., Goldstein, S., González, A.J., Green, P.J., Hallab, A., Hartog, M., Hua, A., Humphray, S.J., Jeong, D-H., Jing, Y., Jöcker, A., Kenton, S., Kim, D-J., Klee, K., Lai, H., Lang, C., Lin, S., Macmil, S.L., Magdelenat, G., Matthews, L., McCorrison, J., Monaghan, E.L., Mun, J-H., Najar, F.Z. , Nicholson, C., Noirot, C., O’Bleness, M., Paule, C.R., Poulain, J., Prion, F., Qin, B., Qu, C., Retzel, E. F. , Riddle, C., Sallet, E., Samain, S., Samson, N., Sanders, I., Saurat, O., Scarpelli, C., Schiex, T., Segurens, B., Severin, A.J., Sherrier, D. J., Shi, R., Sims, S., Singer, S.R. , Sinharoy, S. , Sterck, L., Viollet, A., Wang, B-B., Wang, K., Wang, M., Wang, X-H., Warfsmann, J., Weissenbach, J., White, D.D., White, J. D., Wiley, G. B., Wincker, P., Xing, Y., Yang, L., Yao, Z., Ying, F., Zhai, J., Zhou, L., Zuber, A., Dénarié, J., Dixon, R. A., May, G. D., Schwartz, D.C., Rogers, J., Quétier, F., Town, C. D., & Roe, B. A. (2011). The Medicago genome provides insight into the evolution of rhizobial symbioses. Nature, November 16, Published online doi:10.1038/nature10625.

Kang, Y., Han, Y., Torres-Jerez, I., Wang, M., Tang, Y., Monteros, M. J., & Udvardi, M. K. (2011). System responses to long-term drought and re-watering of two contrasting alfalfa varieties. Plant Journal, August, doi:10.1111/j.1365-313X.2011.04738.x.

Sanchez, D.H., Schwabe, F., Erban, A., Udvardi, M. K., & Kopka, J. (2011). Comparative metabolomics of drought acclimation in model and forage legumes. Plant Cell and Environment, September, doi:10.1111/j.1365-3040.2011.02423.x.

Sanchez, D.H., Pieckenstain, F. L. , Erban, A., Escaray, F., Kraemer, P.M., Udvardi, M. K., & Kopa, K. (2011). Comparative ionomics and metabolomics in extremophile and glycophytic Lotus species under salt stress challenge the metabolic pre-adaptation hypothesis. Plant Cell and Environment, 34, 605-617 doi/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2010.02266.

Zhou, C. , Han, L., Pislariu, C., Nakashima, J., Fu, C-X., Jiang, Q., Quan, L., Blancaflor, E. B., Tang, Y., Bouton, J. H., Udvardi, M. K., Xia, G., & Wang, Z - Y. (2011). From model to crop: identification of a STAY-GREEN gene from the model legume Medicago truncatula and effective use of gene in improving quality of alfalfa (M. sativa). Plant Physiology, September, doi:10.1104/pp.111.185140.

Genetics and regulation of legume nodule development and differentiation

A Gene Expression Atlas for the model legume, Medicago truncatula

Mechanisms of drought tolerance in Medicago species

Regulation of seed storage metabolism in Medicago seeds