Tobacco Genomics
Cultivated tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) is a member of the Solanaceae, one of the agronomically most important groups of flowering plants that includes eggplant, pepper, petunia, potato, and tomato. N. tabacum is an amphiploid species (2n=48) resulting from an interspecific cross between two wild forms, N. sylvestris (2n=24) and N. tomentosiformis (2n=24). Domesticated tobacco has been cultivated for several thousand years and was widely used by the indigenous peoples in the Americas for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.
Both the wild and domesticated forms of tobacco accumulate a wide variety of alkaloids, the content and composition of which vary among species. The most abundant of the alkaloids produced in wild and cultivated tobacco (Nicotiana) are nicotine, nornicotine, anabasine, and anatabine. In most commercial tobacco varieties, nicotine represents 90-95% of the total alkaloid content of the leaf, with the remainder of the alkaloid pool accounted for by minor alkaloids present in varied amounts depending on cultivar.
We are interested in understanding the enzymology of major and minor leaf alkaloid biosynthesis in cultivated tobacco and the genes and signal transduction processes that control the formation and accumulation of these compounds during normal growth and development and in response to various biotic and abiotic stresses.
The tobacco research group (from left to right): Jim Roberts, Shengcheng Han,
Michael Timko, Hongbo Zhang, Marta Bokowiec, John Finer, Paul Rushton, Jeff Chen
(missing from photo is Tom Laudeman).
