Plant cell wall evolution and diversity - William G.T. Willats group

The primary interest of the group is plant cell walls with particular focus on their evolution, biosynthesis and their use as a bio-resources for functional food ingredients, nutraceuticals, biofuels and other products.  Major research themes include mapping cell wall diversity across the plant kingdom, cell walls in the charophycean green algae, development of high throughput microarray technology for cell wall analysis and bio-prospecting for novel glycan structures.

 

 

Selected publications

Banks, J.A. et al. (2011) The Selaginella Genome Identifies Genetic Changes Associated with the Evolution of Vascular Plants. Science, in press

Sørensen, I., Pettolino, F.A., Bacic, A., Ralph, J., Lu, F., O’Neill, M.O., Fei, Z., Rose, J.K.C., Domozych, D.,  Willats, W.G.T. (2011) The Charophycean green algae provide insights into the early origins of plant cell wall. The Plant Journal, in press.

Popper, Z.A., Gurvan,  M., Hervé, C., Domozych, D., Willats, W.G.T., Tuohy, M.G., Kloareg, B., Stengel, D.B. (2011) Evolution and Diversity of Plant Cell Walls: From Algae to Flowering Plants. Annual  Review of Plant Biology, 62, 567-90.

Sørensen, I., Domozych, D., Willats, W.G. T. (2010) How have plant cell walls evolved? Plant Physiology 153, 366-372.

 

Sørensen, I., Pettolino, F.A., Wilson, S.M., Doblin, M.S.,  Johansen, B., Bacic, A., and Willats, W.G.T. (2008) Mixed linkage (1→3),(1→4)-β-D-glucan is not unique to the Poales and is an abundant component of Equisetum arvense cell walls. The Plant Journal 54(3): 510-521.

 

Jensen, J.K., Sørensen, S.O., Harholt, J., Geshi, N., Sakuragi, Y., Møller, I., Zandleven, J., Bernal, A.J., Jensen, N.B., Sørensen, C., Pauly, M., Beldman, G., Willats, W.G.T. and Scheller H.V. (2008) Identification of a xylogalacturonan xylosyltransferase involved in pectin biosynthesis in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell, 20(5):1289-1302.

 

Bernal, A.J., Yoo, C-M., Mutwil, M., Jensen, J.K., Hou, G., Blaukopf, C., Sørensen, I., Blancaflor, E.B., Scheller H.V., Willats, W.G.T. (2008) Functional Analysis of the Cellulose Synthase Like Genes ATCSLD1, ATCSLD2 and ATCSLD4 In Tip Growing Arabidopsis Cells. Plant Physiology, 148, 1238-1253.