Nicholas P. Harberd
Project Leader, Cell and Developmental Biology
Department
John Innes Centre
Contacts
Tel (44) (01603) 450525
Fax (44) (01603) 450025
e-mail: nicholas.harberd@bbsrc.ac.uk
Project leader, John Innes Centre, 1989-present
BA, MA, PhD Cantab. 1981
Postdoctoral research at University of California, Berkeley, USA, 1986-1988
Regulation of plant growth and development by gibberellin
My research group is interested in the way that the plant hormone gibberellin (GA) regulates plant growth and development. In particular, we focus on the signalling system which translates the signal generated on perception of GA into the characteristic GA responses exhibited by plants. We have cloned a gene from Arabidopsis that encodes a protein (GAI) that plays a key role in GA signalling, and have shown that orthologous proteins act in GA signalling in other plant species. Currently we are investigating the biochemical mechanisms whereby GAI and related proteins act in GA-signalling, and using a variety of approaches to identify additional components in GA signalling.
Recent Publications
Richards, D.E., King, K.E., Ait-ali, T., and Harberd, N.P. (2001) How gibberellin regulates plant growth and development: a molecular genetic analysis of gibberellin signalling. Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology (in press)
Collett, C.E., Harberd, N.P., and Leyser, H.M.O. (2000) Hormonal interactions in the control of hypocotyl elongation. Plant Physiology 124: 553-562.
Richards, D.E., Peng, J., and Harberd, N.P. (2000) Plant GRAS and metazoan STATs: one family ? BioEssays 22: 573-577.
Peng, J., Richards, D.E., Hartley, N.M., Murphy, G.P., Devos, K.M., Flintham, J.E., Beales, J., Fish, L.J., Worland, A.J., Pelica, F., Sudhakar, D., Christou, P., Snape, J.W., Gale, M.D., and Harberd, N.P. (1999) ‘Green Revolution’ genes encode mutant gibberellin response modulators. Nature 400: 256-261.
Cowling, R.J., and Harberd, N.P. (1999) Gibberellins control Arabidopsis hypocotyl growth via regulation of cellular elongation. Journal of Experimental Botany 50: 1351-1357.
Peng, J., Richards, D.E., Moritz, T., Caño-Delgado, A., and Harberd, N.P. (1999) Extragenic suppressors of the Arabidopsis gai mutation alter the dose-response relationship of diverse gibberellin responses. Plant Physiology 119: 1199-1207.
Harberd, N.P., King, K.E., Carol, P., Cowling, R.J., Peng, J., and Richards, D.E. (1998) Gibberellin: inhibitor of an inhibitor of...? BioEssays 20, 1001-1008.
Cowling, R.J., Kamiya, Y., Seto, H., and Harberd, N.P. (1998) Gibberellin dose-response regulation of GA4 gene transcript levels in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology 117, 1195-1203.
Peng, J., Carol, P., Richards, D.E., King, K.E., Cowling, R.J., Murphy, G.P., and Harberd, N.P. (1997) The Arabidopsis GAI gene defines a signalling pathway that negatively regulates gibberellin responses. Genes and Development 11, 3194-3205.