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Meet the Faculty

Edgar Cahoon

Adjunct Associate Professor
Division of Plant Sciences

Phone: 402-472-5611
Fax: 402-472-3139
E-mail: ECahoon2@unl.edu
Address: Center for Plant Science Innovation &

Department of Biochemistry

University of Nebraska-Lincoln
E318 Beadle Center
1901 Vine St.
Lincoln, NE 68588

Education
B.S., Biochemistry (Summa cum laude), Virginia Tech
M.S., Plant Physiology, Cornell University
Ph.D., Botany and Plant Physiology, Michigan State University

Description
My lab conducts basic and applied research on plant lipid metabolism. The goals of our research are to enhance the nutritional and industrial value of crop plants and to probe the synthesis and function of bioactive lipids for nutritional biofortification and improved agronomic performance of crops.

Oilseed crops such as soybean can serve as platforms for the sustainable production of fatty acids for human and livestock nutrition, bio-based fuels, and industrial chemicals. Functional genomic studies in my lab are aimed understanding the synthesis and metabolism of high-value fatty acids, such as the conjugated fatty acid eleostearic acid. We are attempting to identify genes from non-agronomic species that can be used to generate novel vegetable oils in soybean and the emerging oilseed camelina. My lab also is actively involved in understanding the regulation of flux in the plastid isoprenoid pathway in order to enhance the content of vitamin E antioxidants and provitamin A in crop plants. One of our current areas of research is the development of provitamin A-rich cassava to meet the nutritional demands of populations in sub-Saharan Africa (www.biocassavaplus.org).

Sphingolipids are major components of the plasma membrane and tonoplasts of plant cells and contribute to the ability of plants to respond to biotic and abiotic stresses. We are attempting to understand the synthesis and function of sphingolipids in Arabidopsis in order to produce higher yielding crops with improved stress tolerance. Recent publications from my lab have highlighted the importance of sphingolipids in pollen and endomembrane development. We have also shown that small modifications of sphingolipid structure in planta can result in enhanced production of sphingolipids with aberrant fatty acid chain lengths, which provides insights into the regulation of the biosynthesis of these essential lipids in plants.

Recent Publications:
Ramamoorthy V, Cahoon EB, Thokala M, Kaur J, Li J, Shah DM (2009) Sphingolipid C9-methyltransferases are important for growth and virulence but not for sensitivity to antifungal plant defensins in Fusarium graminearum. Eukaryotic Cell 8:217-229.

Chen M, Markham JE, Dietrich CR, Jaworski JG, Cahoon EB (2008) Sphingolipid long-chain base hydroxylation is important for growth and for the regulation of sphingolipid content and composition in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 20:1862-1878.

Dietrich CR, Han G, Chen M, Berg RH, Dunn TM, Cahoon EB (2008) Loss-of-function mutations and inducible RNAi suppression of Arabidopsis LCB2 genes reveal the critical role of sphingolipids in gametophytic and sporophytic cell viability. Plant Journal 54: 284-298 (cover article)

Cahoon EB, Shockey JM, Dietrich CR, Gidda SK, Mullen RT, Dyer JM (2007) Engineering oilseeds for sustainable production of industrial and nutritional feedstocks: solving bottlenecks in fatty acid flux. Curr. Opin. Plant. Biol. 10: 236-244.