Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Guanghui Xu

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Guanghui Xu, c0-first author of Evolutionary metabolomics identifies significant metabolic divergence between maize and its wild ancestor, teosinte

Current Position: Ph.D. student at China Agricultural University

Education:

Ph.D. candidate in Plant Genetics and Breeding, China Agricultural University

Master’s degree in Plant Genetics and Breeding, China Agricultural University

Bachelor’s degree in Plant Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University

Non-scientific Interests: reading, hiking, music, movie, traveling, watching TV, learning English

Brief bio: I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in plant science and technology at Hebei Agricultural University in 2012. Then I joined in the research group led by Professor Feng Tian at China Agricultural University and started my research career about maize domestication. In the first few years in Dr. Feng Tian’s lab, I focused on the morphological traits, such inflorescence and leaf size which differs a lot between maize and its wild ancestor, teosinte. We performed linkage and association analysis to dissect the genetic basis of these morphological changes during maize domestication. During my Ph.D. study, I focused on the metabolic traits, which are not visible phenotypes and certainly escape analysis. In this project, we combined evolutionary metabolomics and population genetics approaches to identify metabolites that were targeted by selection during maize domestication. Through integrating genome, transcriptome and metabolome data, we were able to identify candidate genes responsible for the metabolite divergence.

 

第一作者：许光辉

当前职位：中国农业大学博士研究生

教育经历：

博士就读于中国农业大学作物遗传育种专业

硕士毕业于中国农业大学作物遗传育种专业

本科毕业于河北农业大学植物科学与技术专业

兴趣爱好：阅读、音乐、跑步、旅游、看电视、看电影、学英语

个人简介：我2012年毕业于河北农业大学植物科学与技术专业，之后加入了中国农业大学田丰教授课题组从事玉米驯化遗传学研究。在硕士阶段，我主要关注玉米花序大小、叶片大小等形态性状。这些性状在大刍草和栽培玉米间变异很大，我们通过连锁分析和关联分析鉴定了控制这些表型性状的QTL并对候选基因进行了挖掘。博士阶段我主要从代谢组的角度解析玉米驯化。我们关注代谢组主要是因为代谢物在植物的生物抗性及非生物抗性中发挥了重要的作用，所以它们可能在作物驯化过程中扮演重要角色。我们通过结合代谢组学和群体遗传学鉴定了玉米驯化过程中受到选择的代谢物，并且通过结合基因组、转录组和代谢组数据鉴定了控制玉米-大刍草代谢物分化的基因。