Longfei Wang is a Ph.D. student with Dr. Sue Loesch-Fries characterizing the functions of chloroplast proteins in plant defense signaling pathway. The overall objectives of Longfei’s research are to: find and confirm the chloroplast proteins which can interact with coat protein (CP) of Alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV), determine the effects of those proteins on virus replication by silence or overexpress the genes coding the proteins mentioned above, determine whether these genes get involved in plant defense signaling pathway, such as salicylic acid (SA) pathway, jasmonic acid (JA) pathway and ethylene (ET) pathway, etc., and characterize the functions of these genes in defense signaling pathway. The ultimate goal of this research is to find out how virus interact with plants and then increase their population and inhibit plant defense pathway by disturbing or interrupting which components of plants and to contribute the knowledge to develop practical methods helping plants resist pathogen.

Selected Publications