Suhua Li

Researcher

Keywords: Plant hormone, metabolism, herbivore, AMF

Plant secondary metabolites play essential roles in plant development, defense on biotic and abiotic stresses and interactions with other organisms and constitute a valuable resource for commercial applications in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. By taking advantage of genomics, metabolomics with genetic methods, our group focuses on elucidating the roles of plant hormones such as strigolactones and jasmonates in regulating the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, which consequently affects the growth and production of economic plants such as potato and tobacco. We are interested in understanding the mechanism of how the changes of metabolism triggered by these hormones may affect the interplay between the host plants with plant herbivores and rhizosphere microbes. This research will facilitate the production of crops.

Our research projects have three main focus areas:

1. Molecular mechanisms of Strigolactone and jasmonate signal transductions

2. How do plant hormones regulate plant-herbivore interactions including potato with Colorado potato beetle and potato tuberworm?

3. How do plant hormones regulate plant-microbe interactions including tobacco with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)?