Imara Perera
Bio
The overarching goal of my research is to understand the molecular mechanisms governing plant responses to environmental stimuli and stress; in particular the involvement of the phosphoinositide signaling pathway. The membrane associated inositol phospholipids and soluble inositol phosphates provide a means of both intercepting a signal at the membrane and propagating it within the cell. Our current focus is on inositol pyrophosphates, a novel class of signaling molecules. Our hypothesis is that these molecules are involved in energy and nutrient sensing in plants and we are taking a multifaceted approach of molecular genetics, biochemistry, physiology, and systems biology to address this hypothesis as well as understand the global regulation of the pathway.
Another avenue of research in the lab is to characterize seedling responses to microgravity and the spaceflight environment. Our first flight experiment “Plant Signaling in Microgravity” was a comparative study of transcriptional profiles of wild type and transgenic Arabidopsis seedlings (altered in phosphoinositide-mediated signaling), grown on the International Space Station (ISS). In a second flight experiment “Plant RNA Regulation” we will extend this work to other aspects of gene regulation including changes in small RNAs. Plants will be an integral part of long distance space travel or habitation. An understanding of how plants respond to the spaceflight environment is an important step towards enabling them to withstand stresses and optimize their growth.
Education
Ph.D. Plant Biology University of Illinois 1991
M.S. Plant Biology University of Illinois 1988
M.S. Biochemistry University of Colombo 1984
B.S. Biological Science University of Colombo 1982
Area(s) of Expertise
Inositol phosphate metabolism, plant nutrient and energy sensing, plant stress responses
Publications
- Conserved plant transcriptional responses to microgravity from two consecutive spaceflight experiments , FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE (2024)
- Arabidopsis telomerase takes off by uncoupling enzyme activity from telomere length maintenance in space , NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2023)
- Bridging the gap: parallel profiling of ribosome associated and total RNA species can identify transcriptional regulatory mechanisms of plants in spaceflight , JOURNAL OF PLANT INTERACTIONS (2023)
- Meta-analysis of the space flight and microgravity response of the Arabidopsis plant transcriptome , NPJ MICROGRAVITY (2023)
- Regulation of inositol 1,2,4,5,6-pentakisphosphate and inositol hexakisphosphate levels in Gossypium hirsutum by IPK1 , PLANTA (2023)
- Evaluating the Effects of the Circadian Clock and Time of Day on Plant Gravitropic Responses , PLANT GRAVITROPISM (2022)
- A Role for Inositol Pyrophosphates in the Metabolic Adaptations to Low Phosphate in Arabidopsis , METABOLITES (2021)
- NASA GeneLab RNA-seq consensus pipeline: standardized processing of short-read RNA-seq data , ISCIENCE (2021)
- The Circadian-clock Regulates the Arabidopsis Gravitropic Response , Gravitational and Space Research (2021)
- Uncovering Transcriptional Responses to Fractional Gravity in Arabidopsis Roots , LIFE-BASEL (2021)