Dr.
Amit Dhingra
.jpg) 509-335-3625
adhingra@wsu.edu
Assistant Professor, Department of Horticulture. Ph.D. 2000, University
of Delhi South Campus, India, and Rutgers, The State University
of New Jersey.
Research
Horticultural crops have unique biology and are thus an intriguing
study system Investigations in my research program are focused
on understanding important biological phenomenon in horticultural
crops. We integrate transcriptomics, molecular biology, plant physiology,
functional and translational genomics approaches to identify gene(s)
participating in a biological process. In collaboration with the
in-house bioinformatics expertise in Rosaceae, the ultimate goal
is to develop resources that will support the establishment of
time saving and cost effective methodologies for effective horticultural
crop improvement.
I have had a long standing interest in chloroplast genomics, plastid
transformation and gene expression. The recently described ASAP
methodology (Dhingra and Folta, 2005), which facilitates the rapid
and economical sequencing of chloroplast genomes is being employed
to resolve phylogenetic issues in plant Orders and Families. A
bioinformatics resource for organelle genomics is being developed
based on this method. Plastid transformation offers several benefits
compared to nuclear integration of transgenes. Maternal inheritance
of plastid genome in majority of crops mitigates concerns of transgene
outcross. We are interested in extending this technology to tree
fruit crops as an additional research resource and a novel product
for the market.
An additional interest includes photobiology and photosynthesis
engineering. We have recently described the effect of green light,
considered to be a benign part of the light spectrum, on the plastid
transcriptome. I am interested in the identification of green light
response elements in the chloroplast genome. Photosynthetic efficiency
can have a bearing on the biomass production in plants. We are
interested in modifying Rubisco to tamper with its affinity for
oxygen and efficiency of carbon dioxide capture for eventually
improving biomass.
Selected
Publications
A Dhingra A,
VA James, HU Koop, MC Mok, R De Paepe, M Gallo, KM Folta. 2007.
Transgenic tobacco - Lighting nuclear and organellar function.
In: Kole C, Hall TC (eds) The Transgenics: Encyclopedia of Biotech
Plants. Blackwell Publishing, In Press.
A Dhingra,
DH Bies, KR Lehner and KM Folta. 2006. Green light adjusts
the plastid transcriptome during early photomorphogenic development.
Plant Physiology 142:1256-1266.
KM Folta and
A Dhingra. 2006. Transformation of strawberry: The basis for
translational genomics in Rosaceae. In Vitro Cellular and Developmental
Biology – Plant
42:482-490.
MJ Moore, A
Dhingra, PS Soltis, R Shaw, WG Farmerie, KM Folta and DS Soltis.
2006. Rapid and accurate pyrosequencing of angiosperm plastid
genomes. BMC Plant Biology 6:17.
KM Folta, A
Dhingra, L Howard, P Stewart and CK Chandler. 2006. Characterization
of LF9, an octaploid strawberry genetic line selected for rapid
regeneration and transformation. Planta 224:1058-1067.
KM Folta, A
Dhingra, SA Maruhnich, DH Bies andJ Justice. 2005. Terrestrial
and space applications of LEDs in regulating plant growth and
development. Proceedings of Light Emitting Diodes 2005 Conference,
San Diego, CA, October 17-20, 2005.
A Dhingra and
KM Folta. 2005. ASAP: Amplification, sequencing and annotation
of plastomes. BMC Genomics 6:176. (Highly
accessed paper).
A Dhingra and
H Daniell. 2005. Chloroplast transformation via organogenesis
or somatic embryogenesis. Arabidopsis Protocols 2nd Ed – Methods
in Molecular Biology 323 251- 269.
A Dhingra and
H Daniell. 2004. Engineering of herbicide resistance pathways
via plastid genetic engineering. In: Daniell H and Chase CD (eds),
Molecular Biology of Plant Organelles, pp 491-512. Kluwer Academic
Publishers.
A Dhingra,
AR Portis Jr. and Henry Daniell. 2004. Enhanced translation
of a chloroplast expressed RbcS gene restores SSU levels and
photosynthesis in nuclear antisense RbcS plants. Proceedings
of National Academy of Sciences, USA, 101:6315-6320.
H Daniell,
O Ruiz and A Dhingra. 2004. Chloroplast transformation of higher
plants. Methods in Molecular Biology 286:111-137.
S Kumar, A
Dhingra and H Daniell. 2004. Plastid expressed betaine aldehyde
dehydrogenase gene in carrot cultured cells, roots and leaves,
confers enhanced salt tolerance. Plant Physiology 136:2843-2854.
S Kumar, A
Dhingra and H Daniell. 2004. Stable transformation of the cotton
plastid genome and maternal inheritance of transgenes. Plant
Molecular Biology 56: 203-216.
A Dhingra,
JP Khurana and AK Tyagi. 2004. Involvement of G-proteins
and calmodulin in lightdependent control of the expression of
(psbA, psaA and rbcL) in rice (Oryza sativa
L.). Plant Science
166:163-168.
H Daniell and
A Dhingra. 2002. Multigene engineering: Dawn of an exciting
new era in plant biotechnology. Current Opinion in Biotechnology
13:136-141.
AK Tyagi, JP
Khurana, AK Sharma, A Mohanty, A Dhingra, S Raghuvanshi and T
Gaur. 2002. Mechanism of regulation of gene expression for chloroplast
proteins. In: SK Sopory, R Oelmuller & SC Maheshwari (eds)
Signal transduction in plants. Current advances, pp 297- 307.
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
H Daniell,
A Dhingra and LA Allison. 2002. Chloroplast Transformation:
From Basic Molecular Biology to Biotechnology. Reviews in Plant
Biotechnology and Biochemistry 1:1-20.
H Daniell,
A Dhingra and A Fernandez San-Milan. 2001. Chloroplast transgenic
approach for the production of antibodies, biopharmaceuticals
and edible vaccines. In International Congress of Photosynthesis;
Brisbane, Australia, 2001:S40-04.
AK Tyagi, A
Dhingra & S Raghuvanshi. 2000. Light-regulated expression
of photosynthesisrelated genes. In: M Yunus, U Pathre, P Mohanty
(eds), Probing Photosynthesis: Mechanism, Regulation and Adaptation,
pp 324-341.Taylor and Francis Publishers Ltd., London
M Grover, A
Dhingra, AK Sharma, et al. 1999. Involvement of phytochrome,
Ca2+ and phosphorylation in light-dependent control of transcript
levels for plastid genes (psbA, psaA and rbcL) in rice (Oryza
sativa L.). Physiologia Plantarum 105:701-707.
M Grover, AK
Sharma, A Dhingra, et al. 1998. Regulation of plastid gene expression
involves calcium and protein phosphatases/kinases for signal
transduction. Plant Science 137:185- 190.
AK Tyagi, AK
Sharma, M Grover, A Mohanty, A Dhingra, et. al. 1998. Investigations
on expression and engineering of genes in rice. In: Gupta, P.
K. (ed), Proceedings of the Symposium on Genetics and Biotechnology
in crop improvement, pp 169-181. Rastogi Publications, Meerut,
India.
AK Tyagi, A
Sharma, S Bajaj, Anju, A Mohanty, A Dhingra, S Raghuvanshi, NR
Chaudhury, S Mukherjee. 1997. Investigations on expression and
engineering of plastid and nuclear genes in rice. In: Abstracts
of General Meeting of the International Program on Rice Biotechnology,
Malacca, Malaysia.
AK Tyagi, M
Grover, A Sharma, CN Chowdhry, A Mohanty, A Dhingra, S Raghuvanshi,
N Maheshwari, SC Maheshwari, NR Choudhury, S Mukherjee and VP
Singh. 1996. Studies on expression and engineering of plastid
and nuclear genes in rice. In: Abstracts of 5th Annual Meeting,
National Rice Biotechnology Network, IARI, New Delhi.
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