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Phone: (612) 625-1234
Fax: (612) 625-1738

Department of Plant Biology
University of Minnesota
250 Biological Science Center
1445 Gortner Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108

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Jane Glazebrook

Associate Professor, Department of Plant Biology
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991

Genomics of plant defense responses

Contact Information

Mailing Address:

Dr. Jane Glazebrook
Department of Plant Biology
University of Minnesota
1500 Gortner Avenue
Room 324 CMPG
St. Paul, MN 55108

Office: 324 CMPG
Phone: 612-624-5194
Fax: 612-625-1738
E-mail: jglazebr@umn.edu

Research Interests

Pathogen pressure exerts a major drag on crop yields.  The outcomes of plant-pathogen interactions are determined by a fascinating complex interplay between pathogen efforts to extract nutrients from plant hosts and host efforts to prevent this.  Major host and pathogen genes that play roles in these interactions are subject to ongoing selection as both pathogens and hosts evolve improved mechanisms for attack and defense.

The main focus of our research is on understanding the signal transduction network controlling plant responses to pathogen attack.  We use expression profiles as detailed descriptions of mutant phenotypes.  By obtaining profiles from many mutants with defense signaling defects, and comparing them using various pattern-recognition methods, we build models of the signaling network.  We also use reverse genetics to test pathogen-responsive genes for roles in defense.

Arabidopsis thaliana is our model system.  In much of our work we use the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae.  Growth of this hemi-biotrophic pathogen is limited by two main sectors of the defense network.  One sector triggers defenses by host recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), while the other triggers defenses through the salicylic acid (SA)-dependent network sector.  We also study defenses against the necrotrophic fungal pathogen Alternaria brassicicola.  Effective defense against his pathogen depends on production of the small anti-microbial molecule camalexin, as well as on the jasmonic acid-dependent network sector.  By studying responses to both of these pathogens, we hope to obtain a broad view of the plant defense network.

We have recently initiated a new project in collaboration with the Katagiri, Gibson, and Orf labs.  We will use expression profiling of soybean recombinant inbred lines to define expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) that contribute to oil quantity and quality.

We are grateful to the NSF Arabidopsis 2010 program, DOE Biosciences, and the UMN Discovery grant program for funding our work.

Selected Publications

Nafisi, M., Goregaoker, S., Botanga, C.J., Glawischnig, E., Olsen, C.E., Halkier, B.A. and Glazebrook, J.  Arabidopsis Cytochrome P450 Monooxygenase 71A13 Catalyzes the Conversion of Indole-3-Acetaldoxime in Camalexin Synthesis.  Plant Cell19:2039-2052 (2007).

Sato, M., Mitra, R.M., Coller, J., Wang, D., Spivey, N.W., Dewdney, J., Denoux, C., Glazebrook, J., and Katagiri, F.  A High-Performance, Small-Scale Microarray for Expression Profiling of Many Samples in Arabidopsis-Pathogen Studies.  Plant J. 49:565-577 (2007).

Parisy, V., Poinssot, B., Owsianowski, L., Buchala, A., Glazebrook, J., and F. Mauch.  Identification of PAD2 as a γ-Glutamylcysteine Synthetase Highlights the Importance of Glutathione in Disease Resistance of Arabidopsis.  Plant J. 49:159-172 (2007).

Glazebrook, J.  Contrasting Mechanisms of Defense Against Biotrophic and Necrotrophic Pathogens.  Ann. Rev. Phytopath.  43:205-227 (2005).

Eulgem, T., Weigman, V.J., Chang, H.-S., McDowell, J.M., Holub, E.B., Glazebrook, J., Zhu, T., Dangl, J.L. Gene Expression Signatures from Three Genetically Separable R Gene Signaling Pathways for Downy Mildew Resistance. Plant Physiol. 135:1129-1144 (2004).

Katagiri, F., and Glazebrook, J. Local Context Finder (LCF) Reveals Multidimensional Relationships Among mRNA Expression Profiles of Arabidopsis Responding to Bacterial Pathogen Infection (2003). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 100:10842-10847.

van Wees, S., Chang, H.-S., Zhu, T., and Glazebrook, J. Characterization of the Early Response of Arabidopsis to Alternaria brassicicola infection using Expression Profiling. Plant Physiology (2003). 132:606-617.

Glazebrook, J., Chen, W., Estes, B., Chang, H.-S., Nawrath, C., Metraux, J.-P., Zhu, T., and Katagiri, F. Topology of the Network Integrating Salicylate and Jasmonate Signal Transduction Derived from Global Expression Phenotyping (2003). Plant J. 34:217-288.

van Wees, S. C. M. and Glazebrook, J. Loss of Nonhost Resistance of Arabidopsis NahG to Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola is Due to Degradation Products of Salicylic Acid. Plant J. 33:733-742 (2003).