Post-doctoral Researcher University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois
Body of Abstract: Stomata are pores on the leaf vital for gas exchange, and are the primary point of control for modulating water loss. Although a large amount of work has been committed to understanding the molecular networks controlling the initiation and development of stomata in Arabidopsis, little work has been done to elucidate the mechanisms controlling stomata development in crop species, including many of the grasses. As such, we generated transcriptomes of wildtype sorghum leaf sections during stomatal development, as well as transcriptomes of stomatal development in a transgenic Sorghum line expressing a chimeric protein which reduces stomatal densities. In addition to tracking gene expression across stomatal development in an important grass species, we also identify potential candidate genes involved in stomatal development which will be used in future transgenic trials for more water efficient crops.