Dusan Velickovic

Elucidation of the Roles of Diazotrophic EndoPopulus: Endophyte Communities in Promoting Productivity and Resilience of Populus through Systems Biology Approaches (EndoPopulus)

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Amir Ahkami

The plant microbiome, including microbial endophytes living within plants and the epiphytes living on the plant surface, has a profound influence on the productivity and resilience of the host plant…

Spatial Metabolomics and Glycomics for Human Kidneys

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

Acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are major contributors to overall morbidity and mortality in patients in the US. However, we lack a clear understanding of the major…

Spatially resolved characterization of proteoforms for functional proteomics

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Ljiljana Pasa-Tolic

Differentiated cells have distinctive patterns of epigenetic marks including various post-translational modifications (PTMs) on histones that may work in concert to control transcriptional programs…

RhizoMap: metabolic imaging of the rhizosphere through time and space

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Dusan Velickovic

Current EMSL technologies for molecular imaging of rhizosphere rely on either analyzing root that has been removed from the soil or on probing microfluidic devices that mimic rhizosphere environment …

Next-generation stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy to overcome photodamage and resolution limitations for real-time tracking of lipid/carbohydrate interfaces in plants, algae, and fungi

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

We will enhance the sensitivity through quantum- enhanced noise suppression in the SRS signal. The enhanced sensitivity will benefit from lower excitation power, lower detection concentrations, and…

Multi-Scale Multi-Modality High Resolution Mapping of the Adult Human Lung

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

The Human Biomolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) is entering the production phase, with an emphasis on progressive, high sensitivity and specificity assays, prioritizing spatial biomolecular analysis…

Spatiotemporal mapping of lignocellulose decomposition by a naturally evolved fungal garden microbial consortium

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Kristin Burnum-Johnson

Some microbial communities composed of bacteria and fungi can readily breakdown plant matter into its component sugars. Leaf-cutter ants take advantage of such microbial communities by maintaining…

Preserving plant tissue section integrity and introducing ionic organic matrices to strengthen plant MALDI MSI capability at EMSL

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Dusan Velickovic

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is the most utilized capability for spatial metabolomics in EMSL. Still, it can be significantly improved to…

Development of nanospray desorption electrospray ionization with sample imprinting as a tool to characterize microbial and below-ground interfaces

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a well-established strategy to observe spatial molecular-level information. However, the vacuum associated with many imaging modalities do not allow for the…

Mechanisms of the protective effects of dietary omega-3 fatty acids and carotenoids in age-related macular degeneration

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Ernesto Nakayasu

The goal of the proposed project is to deepen our understanding of the lipid pathways involved in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and the protective effects of dietary omega-3 fatty acids (…

Spatiotemporal mapping of lignocellulose decomposition by a naturally evolved fungal garden microbial consortium

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Kristin Burnum-Johnson

Some microbial communities composed of bacteria and fungi can readily breakdown plant matter into its component sugars. Leaf-cutter ants take advantage of such microbial communities by maintaining…

Improving on MALDI-MS imaging of Environmental Microcystins

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Dusan Velickovic

This proposal aims to improve the spatial detection of microcystins (MC) in liver tissue of mice gavaged with most common MC congener, MC-LR. MCs are common environmental contaminants, cyclic…

SyPro Poplar: Improving Poplar Biomass Production under Abiotic Stress Conditions: an
Integrated Omics, Bioinformatics, Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering Approach

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Amir Ahkami

To engineer bioenergy crops that can grow in dry, marginal lands, this project will introduce into poplar trees tolerance to different environmental stresses such as water deficit, high soil salinity…

Spatial Metabolomics and Glycomics for Human Kidneys

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

Acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are major contributors to overall morbidity and mortality in patients in the US. However, we lack a clear understanding of the major…

Development of a functional proteomics workflow for characterization of glycoproteins

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Mowei Zhou

Glycosylation is a diverse family of post-translational modification (PTM) that affects protein structure/function but is not directly encoded in the genome, and represents significant challenge for…

Spatially resolved characterization of proteoforms for functional proteomics

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Ljiljana Pasa-Tolic

Differentiated cells have distinctive patterns of epigenetic marks including various post-translational modifications (PTMs) on histones that may work in concert to control transcriptional programs…

Toward plant spatial hormonomics: multiple phytohormone profiling by derivatization assisted-ionization enhanced targeted MALDI MS imaging

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Dusan Velickovic

Phytohormones are physiologically important small molecules that regulate diverse processes as chemical messengers within plants and in plant communications with environments. However, the complex…

Soil-like habitats for spatial analysis of microbe-mineral interactions

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Arunima Bhattacharjee

The objective of this study is to develop mineral microfluidics compatible with a suite of optical and chemical imaging capabilities at EMSL, as well as SSRL, for probing microbially relevant…

Deciphering exopolysaccharide functional specificity via visualization of chemical motifs that mediate microbial-microenvironment interactions in soil micromodels

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Dusan Velickovic

Exopolysaccharides (EPS) are carbohydrate-based matrices of microbial biofilms that microbes use to adapt to their surroundings. The chemical structure of EPS, even within single species biofilms,…

Integrated genomic/transcriptomic/secretomic study of plant-fungal interactions between pines and their symbiotic ectomycorrhizal fungi in the mushroom genus Suillus

Lead Institution

Duke University

Principal Investigator

Rytas Vilgalys

Project type

FICUS Research

We propose an integrated -omic study of symbiotic interactions between pines (Pinus spp.) and their ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) in the genus Suillus. We are developing the Pine-Suillus symbiosis as a…

Development of an in situ multimodal mass spectrometry imaging approach for studying the rhizosphere: from revealing activation of metabolic pathways to elucidating nanoscale exchanges

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

Gaining spatial information of biochemical interactions that occur within the rhizosphere and other subsurface terrestrial ecosystems is an area of major interest. Through bulk extraction methods, we…

Development and refinement of an in situ 'molecular microscope' utilizing ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry

Lead Institution

University of Missouri - Columbia

Principal Investigator

Gary Stacey

The ability to elucidate complex metabolic behavior of living organisms in situ and with cellular resolution is a bioanalytical grand challenge that is yet to be realized. Mass spectrometry imaging …

Development and refinement of an in situ 'molecular microscope' utilizing ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry

Lead Institution

University of Missouri - Columbia

Principal Investigator

Gary Stacey

The ability to elucidate complex metabolic behavior of living organisms in situ and with cellular resolution is a bioanalytical grand challenge that is yet to be realized. Mass spectrometry imaging …

MS imaging of cell wall N- and O-linked glycans in interaction between roots and soil-borne microbes

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Christopher Anderton

We propose to address a critical barrier in deciphering rhizosphere communication, specifically that of the role of glycans (a modifiable moiety of glycoproteins) in these processes. The first aim of…

Reprogramming Plant Gene Regulatory Networks for Source-to-Sink Carbon Allocation

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Amir Ahkami

The regulation of carbon partitioning between source and sink tissues plays a critical role in plant growth and development. Plant productivity is enhanced by sink strength and source activity, which…

Projects