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

Rounsley, S.D. and Last, R.L. (2010). Shotguns and SNPs: how fast and cheap sequencing is revolutionizing plant biology. In press, Plant Journal (open access). Link to pdf

Gao J, Ajjawi I, Manoli A, Sawin A, Xu C, Froehlich J, Last RL, Benning C. (2009). Fatty acid desaturase4 of arabidopsis encodes a protein distinct from characterized fatty acid desaturases. The Plant Journal. E-pub ahead of print.

Schilmiller AL, Schauvinhold I, Larson M, Xu R, Charbonneau AL, Schmidt A, Wilkerson C, Last RL, Pichersky E. (2009) Monoterpenes in the glandular trichomes of tomato are synthesized from a neryl diphosphate precursor rather than geranyl diphosphate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 106 (26): 10865-10870. See publication

Lu, Y. and Last, R.L. (2008) Web-Based Arabidopsis Functional and Structural Genomics Resources : September 28 2008. The Arabidopsis Book. Rockville, MD: American Society of Plant Biologists. doi 10.1199/tab.0118. See publication

DellaPenna, D and R.L. Last. 2008. Genome-enabled approaches shed new light on plant metabolism. Science. 320:479-481. See PubMed

Schilmiller, A.L., R.L. Last and E. Pichersky. 2008. Harnessing plant trichome biochemistry for the production of useful compounds. Plant J. 54:702-711. See PubMed

Lu Y, Savage LJ, Ajjawi I, Imre KM, Yoder DW, Benning C, Dellapenna D, Ohlrogge JB, Osteryoung KW, Weber AP, Wilkerson CG, Last RL. 2008. New Connections Across Pathways and Cellular Processes: Industrialized Mutant Screening Reveals Novel Associations between Diverse Phenotypes in Arabidopsis. Plant Phys. 146(4):1482-500. See PubMed

Lee M, Huang T, Toro-Ramos T, Fraga M, Last RL, Jander G. 2008. Reduced activity of Arabidopsis thaliana HMT2, a methionine biosynthetic enzyme, increases seed methionine content. Plant J. Apr;54(2):310-20 See PubMed

Gu L, Jones AD, Last RL. 2007. LC-MS/MS assay for protein amino acids and metabolically related compounds for large-scale screening of metabolic phenotypes. Anal Chem. 79(21):8067-75. Link to article

Kliebenstein, D.J., J.C. D'Auria, A.S. Behere, J.H. Kim, K.L. Gunderson, J.N. Breen, G. Lee, J. Gershenzon, R.L. Last and G. Jander. 2007. Characterization of seed-specific benzoyloxyglucosinolate mutations in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J. 51, 1062-1076. Link to article

Gu, L., A.D. Jones and R.L. Last. 2007. Rapid LC-MS/MS assay for protein amino acids and metabolically related compounds. Anal. Chem. 79 (21), pp 8067–8075. Link to article

Xin, X., A. Mandaokar, J. Chen, R.L. Last and J. Browse. 2007. Arabidopsis ESK1 encodes a novel regulator of freezing tolerance. Plant J.49: 786-799. Link to article

Last, R.L., A.D. Jones and Y. Shachar-Hill. 2007. Towards the Plant Metabolome and Beyond. Nature Rev. Molec. Cell. Biol. 8, 167-174. Link to article

DellaPenna, D. and R.L. Last. 2006. Progress in the dissection and manipulation of plant vitamin E biosynthesis. Physiol. Plantarum 126:356-368. Link to article

Valentin, H.E., K. Lincoln, F. Moshiri, P.K. Jensen, Q. Qi, T.V. Venkatesh, B. Karunanandaa, S.R. Baszis, S.R. Norris, B. Savidge, K.J. Gruys, R.L. Last. 2006. The Arabidopsis vte5-1 Mutant Reveals a Critical Role for Phytol Kinase in Seed Tocopherol Biosynthesis. Plant Cell. Plant Cell 18: 212-224. Link to article

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