Robert L. Last

Research Interests

Our group uses genetic, genomic and biochemical approaches to understand the regulation of biosynthetic pathways of importance to flowering plants and the animals that depend on plants for sustenance. Plants synthesize an enormous number and variety of primary and specialized (‘secondary’) metabolites. Many have documented or proposed roles in homeostasis (hormones, for example), interaction with other organisms (pathogens, symbionts, and herbivores), and defense against harmful non-biological stress agents (cold, drought, light, oxidizing chemicals, etc). In addition, plants are primary sources of nutrients essential to humans and other animals (for examples: vitamins, essential amino acids, and minerals), pharmaceuticals, and phytochemicals with proposed health-promoting value (antioxidants, phytosterols, glucosinolates, etc). Recent quantum leaps in structural and functional genomics coupled with breakthroughs in mass spectrometry-based analytical chemistry have created unprecedented opportunities to rapidly increase our understanding of how plants synthesize these diverse and important compounds. MORE

Recent Publications

Kim J, Kang K, Vigil EG, Shi F, Jones AD, Barry CS, Last RL. 2012. Striking natural diversity in glandular trichome acylsugar composition is shaped by variation at the Acyltransferase 2 locus in the wild tomato Solanum habrochaites. Plant Physiol. Epub ahead of print.

Schilmiller AL, Charbonneau AL, Last RL. 2012. Identification of a BAHD acetyltransferase that produces protective acyl sugars in tomato trichomes. PNAS 109(40):16377-82. Link to article

Milo R, Last RL. 2012. Achieving diversity in the face of constraints: lessons from metabolism. Science. Jun 29;336(6089):1663-7. Abstract  Reprint   Full Text

Gonzales-Vigil E, Hufnagel DE, Kim J, Last RL, Barry CS. 2012. Evolution of TPS20-related terpene synthases influences chemical diversity in the glandular trichomes of the wild tomato relative Solanum habrochaites. Plant J. 71: 921–935. Link to article

Bell SM, Burgoon LD, Last RL. 2012. MIPHENO: Data normalization for high throughput metabolite analysis. BMC Bioinformatics. 13:10. Link to article

Schilmiller AL, Pichersky E, Last RL. 2012. Taming the hydra of specialized metabolism: how systems biology and comparative approaches are revolutionizing plant biochemistry. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 15 338-344. Link to article

Gu L, Jones AD, Last RL. 2012. Rapid LC−MS/MS Profiling of protein amino acids and metabolically related compounds for large-scale assessment of metabolic phenotypes. Amino Acid Analysis: Methods and Protocols. in Methods in Molecular Biology. M.A. Alterman and P. Hunziker, eds. Humana Press, NY. 828: 1-11. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-61779-445-2_1. Link to article

Ajjawi I, Coku A, Froehlich JE, Yang Y, Osteryoung KW, Benning C, Last RL. 2011. A J-like protein influences fatty acid composition of chloroplast lipids in Arabidopsis. PLoS ONE 6(10): e25368. Link to article

Lu Y, Savage LJ, Last RL. 2011. Chloroplast phenomics: Systematic phenotypic screening of chloroplastpProtein mutants in Arabidopsis. Methods Mol Biol. 775:161-185. Link to article

Falara V, Akhtar T, Nguyen TH, Spyropoulou EA, Bleeker PM, Schauvinhold I, Matsuba Y, Bonini ME, Schilmiller AL, Last RL, Schuurink RC, Pichersky E. 2011. The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) terpene synthase gene family. Plant Physiol. 157:770-789. Link to article

Lu Y, Hall DA, Last RL. 2011. A small zinc finger thylakoid protein plays a 4ole in maintenance of photosystem II in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell 23(5): 1861-1875. Link to article

Lu Y, Savage LJ, Larson MM, Wilkerson C, Last RL. 2011. Chloroplast 2010: A database for large-scale phenotypic screening of Arabidopsis mutants. Plant Physiol. 155(4):1589-600. Link to publication

Buell CR, Last RL. 2010. Twenty-first century plant biology: Impacts of the Arabidopsis genome on plant biology and agriculture. Plant Physiol. 154: 497-500. Link to article

Schilmiller AL, Miner DP, Larson M, McDowell E, Gang DR, Wilkerson C, Last RL. 2010. Studies of a Biochemical Factory: Tomato Trichome Deep Expressed Sequence Tag Sequencing and Proteomics. Plant Physiol. 153:1212-1223. Link to article

Schilmiller AL, Shi F, Kim J, Charbonneau AL, Holmes D, Jones AD, Last RL. 2010. Mass spectrometry screening reveals widespread diversity in trichome specialized metabolites of tomato chromosomal substitution lines. Plant J. 62: 391–403. Link to article

Gu L, Jones AD, Last RL. 2010. Broad connections in the Arabidopsis seed metabolic network revealed by metabolite profiling of an amino acid catabolism mutant. Plant J. 61:579-590. Link to article

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