Robert Schmitz
University of Georgia, GA·Genetics
Genes are switched on and off by stretches of DNA that do not code for proteins. Chemical marks on DNA also shape how the genome behaves.
- Fields
Genetics
Plant Science & Agriculture
Biochemistry
- Topics
maize
Zea mays
crop domestication
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Map accessible chromatin at single-cell resolution across multiple maize genetic backgrounds to identify cell-type-specific regulatory regions and transcription factor binding events.
- Functionally dissect two maize domestication and improvement QTLs to locate the regulatory sequences that cause trait variation, and support AI models that predict regulatory regions in crop genomes.
- Test how the histone mark H3K9me2 and small RNAs contribute to establishing gene body DNA methylation, building on the finding that loss of CMT3 in Eutrema salsugineum coincides with loss of this methylation.
- Investigate the evolutionary conservation of an H3K9 demethylase and how it senses genome-wide heterochromatin levels to shape gene body methylation patterns.
More about the research
Both layers of control remain poorly understood in plants, even though they shaped how crops were domesticated and could guide future breeding. The lab works on two connected questions. Which regulatory regions in the maize genome drive important traits? And how does gene body DNA methylation, a chemical mark found inside active genes, arise and evolve?
Why it matters
Pinpointing the regulatory DNA sequences behind maize domestication traits could help breeders and biotechnologists engineer improved crop varieties more precisely. The same approach could also apply to other crop species. The methylation work is basic science. It clarifies how a widespread chemical mark on DNA arises and may reveal roles for DNA methylation that do not depend on gene regulation in plants and other eukaryotes.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Venkatesan Sundaresan
University of California-Davis, CA·Plant Science & Agriculture
Generate diploid, unrecombined gametes in maize by editing multiple genes required for cell division and meiosis, testing whether cis-regulatory elements are conserved between meiosis and mitosis.
Susan Wessler
University of California-Riverside, CA·Genetics
Map the full range of structural genomic variation, including new insertions, copy number changes, presence/absence variants and inversions, created by the Ping/mPing mobile DNA burst in three rice recombinant inbred populations, using long-read DNA sequencing.
Michael Joseph Buck
University at Buffalo, NY·Genetics
Determine how transcription factors recognize binding sites wrapped on a nucleosome, the DNA spool unit, using the in vitro Pioneer-seq assay to compare sites at every nucleosome position and across sequence variants.
The school
University of Georgia: 27 labs on PI Pages, $628M a year on research, 598 research doctorates a year.
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