Megan M. Augustin

TL;DR: Strong and robust support is found for a sister-group relationship between land plants and one group of streptophyte green algae, the Zygnematophyceae, and suggests that phylogenetic hypotheses used to understand the evolution of fundamental plant traits should be reevaluated.

TL;DR: Findings provide important information for future allele/gene identification using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and marker-assisted selection (MAS) to enhance genetic gain in C. sativa breeding programs.

TL;DR: A new bioinformatic approach using several recent technological improvements was applied to search for genes in the proposed galanthamine biosynthetic pathway, first targeting methyltransferases due to strong signature amino acid sequences in the proteins.

TL;DR: Investigation of the biosynthetic pathway to cyclopamine, a steroid alkaloid that shows promising antineoplastic activities, led to discovery of four enzymes that catalyze the first six steps in steroid alkAloid biosynthesis to produce verazine, a predicted precursor to cyclobutyrate.

TL;DR: The discovery of CYP96T1 is of special interest because it catalyzes the first major branch in Amaryllidaceae alkaloid biosynthesis and is also the first phenol-coupling enzyme characterized from a monocot.