Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Eric Soubeyrand
Eric Soubeyrand, first author of The Peroxidative Cleavage of Kaempferol Contributes to the Biosynthesis of the Benzenoid Moiety of Ubiquinone in Plants
Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher, Horticultural Sciences, University of Florida, FL.
Education: PhD in plant biology; Ecophysiology and functional genomics of grapevine, University of Bordeaux France: M.S. in Plant Biology and Biotechnology University of Bordeaux, France
Non-scientific interest: Gardening, travelling and wine tasting.
Brief bio: I was trained in plant transcriptomics and metabolomics by Dr. Eric Gomes during my PhD at the University of Bordeaux, France. Inspired by having grown up on a French vineyard, I studied the impact of nitrogen availability on the regulation of anthocyanin biosynthetic pathways in grapes in the context of adaptation to climate change. After getting my PhD, I had the chance to join the lab of Dr. Gilles Basset at the Horticultural Science Department at University of Florida. My research focused on the elucidation of the architecture and evolution of plants prenylated benzoquinones biosynthetic networks primarily ubiquinone, a vital cofactor for respiration. In this project, we revealed an unsuspected route for the biosynthesis of the ring of ubiquinone in plants. We demonstrated that kaempferol, a specialized metabolite, contributes to the production of a primary metabolite (ubiquinone). I plan to continue to investigate the linkage between these two biosynthetic pathways, with the hope of finding a way to increase ubiquinone in plants for agricultural and nutritional benefits.
