Type: Associate Faculty
Education:
PhD, Cornell University
Postdoctoral, Duke University
Postdoctoral, North Carolina State University
Contact Info
Office: 362-B Partners III, Centennial Campus
T: 919-515-6319
F: 919-515-3436
Email: Niki_Robertson
Website: Visit our Lab Home Page
My lab has active areas of research in virus-induced gene silencing, geminivirus-host interactions, and inabiotic stress. Long-term goals are to understand how geminiviruss, which are DNA viruses that transcribe their genes in plant nuclei, interact with plant gene silencing pathways, and to be able to harness these viruses for use in the functional genomics of crop plants. A second long-term goal is to understand how modulation of intracellular levels of calcium in the endoplasmic reticulum affects root growth and stress tolerance.
Tuttle JR, Idris AM, Brown JK, Haigler CH, and Robertson D. Disarming Cotton leaf crumple virus for virus induced gene silencing in Gossypium hirsutum. Plant Physiol.
Jordan CV, Shen W, Hanley-Bowdoin L, and Robertson D. (2007). Geminivirus-induced gene silencing of the tobacco retinoblastoma-related gene results in cell death and altered development. Plant Molecular Biology. (in press, available online)
Smith CA, Woloshuk CP, Robertson D, and Payne GA. (2007). Silencing of the aflatoxin gene cluster in a diploid strain of Aspergillus flavus is suppressed by ectopic aflR expression. Genetics.
Blevins T, Rajeswaran R, Shivaprasad PV, Beknazariants D, Si-Ammour A, Park H-S, Vazquez F, Robertson D, Meins F, Hohn T, and Pooggin P. (2006). Four plant Dicers mediate viral small RNA biogenesis and DNA virus induced silencing. Nucleic Acids Research. 34: 6233–6246.
Muangsan N, Beclin C, Vaucheret H, Robertson D. (2004). Geminivirus VIGS of endogenous genes requires SGS2/SDE1 and SGS3 and defines a new branch in the genetic pathway for silencing in plants. Plant J. 38: 1004–1014.
