Faculty
Staff
Faculty Openings

Dr. Victor A. Albert

Empire Innovation Professor
637 Hochstetter Hall
phone: (716) 645-4983
New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, B4-320
phone: (716) 881-7823
email:vaalbert@buffalo.edu

Research Summary

Victor Albert’s research employs genomic, developmental, and genetic approaches to understanding problems in plant evolutionary biology. Areas of current interest include:

- Sequencing and characterization of the avocado and Amborella genomes, Amborella being the sister species to all other flowering plants, and avocado lying near the base of angiosperm phylogeny; use these and other genomes in an attempt to uncover reproductive regulatory mechanisms common to the “ancestral angiosperm”

- Genomics of the coffee plant; seeking evidence for factors underlying the massive diversification of its parent lineage in fruit types and secondary compound chemistries, and working toward better knowledge of traits important for developing agricultural systems

- Reconstruction of whole-genome duplication history as it relates to the diversification of flowering plants, also the ancestral gene order for all angiosperms

- Evo-devo research on the evolution of reproductive development in Gerbera, a member of the sunflower family; Gerbera bears 3 different flower types in single inflorescence heads, and accumulating evidence points to a radial pattern of gene regulation controlling these differences

- The genetic basis for adaptive radiations, for example in the bladderwort/butterwort lineage of carnivorous plants; the species-rich bladderworts have greatly increased rates of molecular evolution, which may in part be explained by altered function of a respiratory protein

************************************

Selected Publications

• Sankoff D, Zheng C, Wall PK, dePamphilis C, Leebens-Mack J, Albert VA. Towards improved reconstruction of ancestral gene order in angiosperm phylogeny. J Comput Biol. 2009 Oct 5;16(10):1353-1367.

• Zheng C, Kerr Wall P, Leebens-Mack J, de Pamphilis C, Albert VA, Sankoff D. Gene loss under neighborhood selection following whole genome duplication and the reconstruction of the ancestral Populus genome. J Bioinform Comput Biol. 2009 Jun;7(3):499-520.

• Chanderbali AS, Albert VA, Leebens-Mack J, Altman NS, Soltis DE, Soltis PS. Transcriptional signatures of ancient floral developmental genetics in avocado (Persea americana; Lauraceae). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Jun 2;106(22):8929-34.

• Nieminen K, Immanen J, Laxell M, Kauppinen L, Tarkowski P, Dolezal K, Tahtiharju S, Elo A, Decourteix M, Ljung K, Bhalerao R, Keinonen K, Albert VA, Helariutta Y. Cytokinin signaling regulates cambial development in poplar. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Dec 16;105(50):20032-7.

• Soltis DE, Albert VA, Leebens-Mack J, Bell CD, Paterson AH, Zheng C, Sankoff D, dePamphilis CW, Wall PK, Soltis PS. Polyploidy and angiosperm diversification. Am. J. Bot. 2009 Jan;96(1):336-348..

• Broholm, SK, Tahtiharju S, Laitinen RAE, Albert VA, Teeri TH, Elomaa P. A TCP domain transcription factor controls flower type specification along the radial axis of the Gerbera (Asteraceae) inflorescence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2008 Jul;105(26):9117-9122.

• Chanderbali AS, Albert VA, Ashworth VE, Clegg MT, Litz RE, Soltis DE, Soltis PS. Persea americana (avocado): bringing ancient flowers to fruit in the genomics era. BioEssays. 2008 Apr;30(4):386-96.

• Soltis DE, Albert VA, Leebens-Mack J, Palmer JD, Wing RA, Depamphilis CW, Ma H, Carlson JE, Altman N, Kim S, Wall PK, Zuccolo A, Soltis PS. The Amborella genome: an evolutionary reference for plant biology. Genome Biol. 2008 Mar 10;9(3):402

• Teeri TH, Elomaa P, Kotilainen M, Albert VA. Mining plant diversity: Gerbera as a model system for plant developmental and biosynthetic research. BioEssays. 2006 Jul;28(7):756-67.

• Laakkonen L, Jobson RW, Albert VA. A new model for the evolution of carnivory in the bladderwort plant (Utricularia): adaptive changes in cytochrome C oxidase (COX) provide respiratory power. Plant Biol (Stuttg). 2006 Nov;8(6):758-64.

• Laitinen RA, Broholm S, Albert VA, Teeri TH, Elomaa P. Patterns of MADS-box gene expression mark flower-type development in Gerbera hybrida (Asteraceae). BMC Plant Biol. 2006 Jun 9;6:11.

• Cui L, Wall PK, Leebens-Mack JH, Lindsay BG, Soltis DE, Doyle JJ, Soltis PS, Carlson JE, Arumuganathan K, Barakat A, Albert VA, Ma H, dePamphilis CW. Widespread genome duplications throughout the history of flowering plants. Genome Res. 2006 Jun;16(6):738-49.

• Albert VA, Soltis DE, Carlson JE, Farmerie WG, Wall PK, Ilut DC, Solow TM, Mueller LA, Landherr LL, Hu Y, Buzgo M, Kim S, Yoo MJ, Frohlich MW, Perl-Treves R, Schlarbaum SE, Bliss BJ, Zhang X, Tanksley SD, Oppenheimer DG, Soltis PS, Ma H, DePamphilis CW, Leebens-Mack JH. Floral gene resources from basal angiosperms for comparative genomics research. BMC Plant Biol. 2005 Mar 30;5:5.

• Jobson RW, Nielsen R, Laakkonen L, Wikström M, Albert VA. Adaptive evolution of cytochrome c oxidase: Infrastructure for a carnivorous plant radiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Dec 28;101(52):18064-8.

• Uimari A, Kotilainen M, Elomaa P, Yu D, Albert VA, Teeri TH. Integration of reproductive meristem fates by a SEPALLATA-like MADS-box gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Nov 2;101(44):15817-22.