User:Benjamin R Harrison

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Benjamin R Harrison

Hi, my name is Benjamin R Harrison, and I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. You can email me through OpenWetWare.

Current Research

I am studying the genetics of aging in Drosophila melanogaster [1] with Dr Kyung Jin Min. Min lab page

Previous Research

As a graduate student I studied gravity signal transduction in plant roots (Perrin et al., 2005) in the lab of Dr Patrick Masson [2] at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In particular we focused our studies on the model plant Arabidopisis thaliana [3]. I spent most of my time studying the functions of two related proteins named ARG1 and ARL2. Work of previous members of the Masson lab had shown that ARG1 and ARL2 are required for Arabidopsis roots to respond to gravity and likely function early in the response to gravity stimulation (Sedbrook et al., 1999; Guan et al., 2003; Boonsirichai et al., 2003). Our work has further demonstrated that ARG1 and ARL2 function in specialized gravity-sensing cells in the root tip, called statocytes. ARG1 and ARL2 functionally link the direction of the gravity vector to regulation of the flow of the hormone auxin away from the root cap toward the region of the root responsible for growth (Harrison and Masson 2008). This appears to occur, in part, through the localization of the auxin efflux protein PIN3 to the plasma membrane along particular sides of the statocytes, a process that also requires adenosine kinase (Young et al., 2006). Current work on genetic modifiers of ARG1 and ARL2 by John Stanga and others in the Masson lab is turning up some very interesting insights into gravity signaling. Stay tuned.