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Dr. James O. Berry

Professor
Cooke 355
phone: (716) 645-4997
e-mail: camjob@buffalo.edu
Further research info

Research Summary

Amaranth uses the highly specialized C4 photosynthetic pathway, which allows this plant to be very efficient in the assimilation or fixation of atmospheric CO2 into biologically useful molecules. C4 plant species possess a specialized leaf organization, which is characterized by the presence of two separate photosynthetic cell types - the mesophyll and bundle sheath cells. Photosynthetic enzymes present in either of these two cell types function together and work as a "CO2 pump" to concentrate CO2 in leaf bundle sheaths cells where carbon fixation occurs. the result is that C4 plants are much more efficient than the more common and less specialized C3 plants, particularly at high temperatures and in marginal desert or arid environments

Selected Publications

• Patel, M., A. Siegle, and J.O. Berry. 2006. Untranslated regions of FbRbcS1 mRNA mediate bundle sheath cell-specific gene expression in leaves of C4 Flaveria bidentis. J. Biol. Chem. 281: 25485 - 25491.
• Patel, M., A.C. Corey, L.-Y. Yin,, S. Ali, W.C. Taylor, and J.O. Berry. 2004. Untranslated regions from C4 amaranth AhRbcS1 mRNAs confer translational enhancement and preferential bundle sheath cell expression in transgenic C4 Flaveria bidentis. Plant Physiol. 136:35503561.
• Patel, M., N.L. Darvey, D.R. Marshall, and J.O. Berry. 2004. Optimization of media for improved plant regeneration efficiency from wheat microspore culture. Euphytica 140:197-204.
• Givens, R.M., M.-H. Lin, D.J. Taylor, U. Mechold, J.O. Berry*, and V.J. Hernandez*. 2004. Inducible Expression, Enzymatic Activity, and Origin of Higher Plant Homologues of Bacterial RelA/SpoT Stress Proteins in Nicotiana tabaccum.* J. Biol. Chem. 279:7495-7504.
  * both authors contributed equally to this work
• McCormac, D.J., H. Litz., J. Wang, P.D. Gollnick, and J.O. Berry. (2001). Light-associated and processing-dependent protein binding to the 5 UTR of rbcL mRNA in the chloroplasts of a C4 plant. J. Biol. Chem. 276:3476-3483.