Chaofu Lu Chaofu Lu Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1998
Office: 314 Plant BioScience Building (406-994-5741)
Lab: 332 Plant BioScience Building (406-994-7865)
Fax: 406-994-7600
Email: clu@montana.edu
Postdoc 2002 – 2005 Institute of Biological Chemistry, Washington State University
Postdoc 1998 – 2002 Department of Metabolic Biology, John Innes Centre, United Kingdom
Ph.D. 1998 Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Many plant species including Arabidopsis thaliana store triacylglycerols (TAGs) in their seeds as carbon reserve. These TAGs are the major source of energy and carbon material that support seedling development during the early stages of plant life. Vegetable oils from soybean (Glycine max), canola (Brassica napus or B. rapa), sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and many other oilseed crops are also an important source of human diet or industrial applications such as biofuels, biolubricants, nylon precursors and detergent feedstocks. My research goal is to make contributions to our understanding of genetic and biochemical factors that control fatty acid and lipid biosynthesis in oilseed plants.
Camelina (Camelina sativa L. Crantz.), usually known as false-flaxor gold-of-pleasure, is an ancient oilseed crop. It has received much attention recently due to the low-input production cost that is particularly desirable for industrial applications. We are using traditional and modern genetic approaches to improve camelina characters, especially seed oil fatty acid compositions, in order to develop an economical oilseed crop for biofuel (Biodiesel) and biomaterial production.
Research
Biochemical genomics: Quizzing the chemical factories of oilseeds - (A collaborative project funded by the NSF Plant Genome Research Program)
Production of biobased lubricants in a dedicated oilseed crop (Funded by USDA)
Chaofu Lu, Zhanguo Xin, Zhonghai Ren, Matrine Miquel and John Browse, 2009. A new enzyme regulating triacylglycerol composition is encoded by the ROD1 gene of Arabidopsis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106:18837-18842.
Chaofu Lu and Jinling Kang, 2008. Generation of transgenic plants of a potential oilseed crop Camelina sativa by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Plant Cell Reports 27: 273-278.
Julie Burgal, Jay Shockey, Chaofu Lu, John Dyer, Tony Larson, Ian Graham, and John Browse, 2008. Metabolic engineering of hydroxy fatty acid production in plants: RcDGAT2 drives dramatic increases in ricinoleate levels in seed oil. Plant Biotechnology Journal 6: 819-831.
Gennidakis S, Rao S, Greenham K, Uhrig R, O’Leary B, Snedden W, Lu C, Plaxton W, 2007. Bacterial- and plant-type phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase polypeptides interact in the hetero-oligomeric Class-2 PEPC complex of developing castor oil seeds. The Plant Journal 52: 839-849.
Chaofu Lu, Jim Wallis and John Browse, 2007. Analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from a full-length cDNA library of developing castor seeds. BMC Plant Biology 7 (1):42.
Chaofu Lu, Martin Fulda, Jim Wallis, John Browse, 2006. A high-throughput screen for genes from castor that boost hydroxy fatty acid accumulation in seed oils of transgenic Arabidopsis. The Plant Journal 45, 847-856.
Chaofu Lu, Shen Bayon de Noyer, DH Hobbs, J Kang, Y Wen, D Krachtus, MJ Hills, 2003. Expression pattern of diacylglycerol acyltransferase-1, an enzyme involved in triacylglycerol biosynthesis, in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Molecular Biology 52(1):31-41.
Chaofu Lu, Matthew J. Hills, 2002. Arabidopsis mutants deficient in diacylglycerol acyltransferase display increased sensitivity to abscisic acid, sugars, and osmotic stress during germination and seedling development. Plant Physiology 129 (3): 1352-1358.
Hobbs DH, Lu Chaofu, Hills MJ, 1999. Cloning of a cDNA encoding diacylglycerol acyltransferase from Arabidopsis thaliana and its functional expression. FEBS Letters 452 (3): 145-149.
Last updated - 12/3/2009