I am visiting the AMR Gatehouse laboratory from April 2010 to June 2010. I am collaborating on wheat-aphid proteomics and geneChip studies. My academic home is the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, CA. I am an active member in the Center for Plant Cell Biology and Center for Disease-Vector Research. I participate in the Plant Biology, Genetics-Genomics & Bioinformatics, Entomology, and Cell-Molecular & Developmental Biology graduate programs.
1) Understanding the role of leucine aminopeptidase as a modulator of tomato wound and defense responses.
2) Identifying the resistance traits in Arabidopsis that interfere with Bemisia tabaci biotype B (the silverleaf whitefly) nymph development
3) Understanding whitefly behaviors on plants with enhanced or abrogated defenses.
4) Determining the tomato defense responses to multi-herbivore interactions – the phoretic interactions of broad mites and whiteflies are being used as a model system.
5) Identification of the whitefly effectors that influence host plant defense activation/suppression and developmental disorders.
Selected recent publications
Fowler, J.H., Aromdee, D.N., Pautot, V., Holzer, F.M., and Walling, L.L. (2009). Leucine aminopeptidase regulates defense and wound signaling downstream of jasmonic acid. Plant Cell 21, 1239-1251.
Walling, L.L. (2009). Adaptive defense responses to pathogens and pests. Adv. Bot. Res. 51, 551-612.
Polge, C., Jaquinod, M., Holzer, F.M., Bourguignon, J., Walling, L.L., and Brouquisse, R. (2009). Evidence for the existence in Arabidopsis thaliana of the proteasome proteolytic pathway: activation in response to cadmium. Journal of Biological Chemistry 284 35412-35424.
Walling, L.L. (2008). Avoiding effective defenses: Strategies employed by phloem-feeding insects. Plant Physiol. 146, 859-866.
Zarate, S.I., Kempema, L.A., and Walling, L.L. (2007). Silverleaf whitefly induces salicylic acid defenses and suppresses effectual jasmonic acid defenses. Plant Physiol 143, 866-875.
Kempema, L.A., Cui, X., Holzer, F.M., and Walling, L.L. (2007). Arabidopsis transcriptome changes in response to phloem-feeding silverleaf whitefly nymphs. Similarities and distinctions in responses to aphids. Plant Physiol 143, 849-865.
Narváez-Vásquez, J., Tu, C.J., Park, S.Y., and Walling, L.L. (2007). Targeting and localization of wound-inducible leucine aminopeptidase A in tomato leaves. Planta 227, 341-351.