Faculty Profile
Mohammad G. Mostofa
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
317 Jahn Laboratory
The MOSTO Lab
Education
Ph.D. in Plant & Environmental Sciences, Ehime University, Japan (2015)
MS in Applied Biological Sciences, Kagawa University, Japan (2012)
MS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2003)
B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2002)
Professional Experience
2024-Current: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
2022-2024: Assistant Professor-Fixed Term, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, DOE-Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University
2021-2022: Research Scientist, Dept. of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University
2016-2018: JSPS postdoctoral fellow, Signaling Pathway Research Unit, RIKEN-CSRS, Japan
2007-2021: Faculty, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Bangladesh
Research Interest
Plants can’t move around, but they constantly deal with challenges in their environment, challenges that are being exacerbated by climate change. We study the responses and tolerance mechanisms that plants deploy to thrive under extreme environmental conditions. This research spans physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to stressors. In additions to modern techniques like genetic engineering to develop transgenic and mutant plants, and omics, we also use gas exchange measurements in plants to connect plant photosynthetic attributes to stress tolerance mechanisms. My newly established lab will focus on the following four themes.
- Isoprene emission in soybeans and its effects on soybean resilience to climate instability
Isoprene (CH2=C(CH3)CH=CH2) is a hemiterpene synthesized in many plants by isoprene synthase (ISPS). It was believed that modern food crops, like soybeans, do not emit isoprene, and it appeared to have no intact ISPS. However, we now know that soybean has at least two intact ISPS genes and can emit isoprene after being wounded. This discovery raises questions, including; (1) why soybean has retained ISPS? and (2) can soybean limit isoprene emissions to times of stress, so they don’t pay the metabolic cost of generating isoprene except when it is needed. We will address these questions by eliminating the native soybean ISPS (KO) by CRISPR to see if the plants are less resilient without their native ISPS. We will also transform a eucalyptus ISPS (OX) to soybeans, and then test if these plants would exhibit increased resilience to climate factors like ozone and high temperature stresses.
2. Roles of strigolactones and karrikins in tree physiology under stressful conditions
Strigolactones (SLs) and karrikins (KARs) are signaling compounds having essential roles in plant physiology and plant-microbe interactions. SLs and KARs can shape plant architecture by regulating many important aspects of plant growth and development. Recently, we learned that SLs and KARs regulate plant adaptation to various stresses, such as drought, salinity, and heat. While most studies of SL and KAR focused on model plants like Arabidopsis and rice, little or nothing is known about their roles in tree species. We will identify and characterize the SL/KAR-related genes in tree species like chestnut, American elm, and poplars, with the aim to offer new strategies to improve growth, productivity, and stress resilience of trees by leveraging the potential of SLs and KARs.
3. Regulation of Glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) shunt in plant responses to abiotic stresses
Oxidative pentose phosphate (OPP) can form a cytosolic shunt (G6P shunt) around the chloroplast, which releases CO2(light respiration) and provides NADPH and pentose sugar ribose 5-phosphate important for many redox reactions and biosynthetic pathways. Glucose 6-phophate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) is the key enzyme in OPP pathway and is known to have two cytosolic isoforms G6PD5 and G6PD6 in higher plants. Under stress, most of the light respiration resulted from the cytosolic G6P shunt. We will investigate how light respiration and the cytosolic G6P shunt respond to drought and excessive heat, and the effects of these stresses on wild type versus single and double mutants of G6PDH.
4. Can isoprene improve disease resistance and climate resilience of chestnut tree
Isoprene is mostly emitted by fast growing hard-wood trees like oak, eucalyptus, and poplars. While chestnut trees are fast growing hardwoods, they lack the isoprene synthase gene(s) and thus considered as non-emitter. The American Chestnut is nearly extinct due to fungal blight, and climate factors like high temperature and ozone may enhance its susceptibility to blight fungus. We will explore if isoprene treatment can enhance resistance to blight, O3, and heat stress. The long-term goal to put the isoprene synthase gene into blight-resistant chestnuts in order to develop a sustainable chestnut line amidst the climate instability.
Publications
Selected Publications
Complete list at Google Scholar and RG ResearchGate
Bellucci M, Mostofa MG*, ………., Sharkey TD (2024) The effects of constitutive isoprene emission on root physiology and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis. Plant Direct 2024 Jul; 8(7): e617.
Hossain MM, ………, Mostofa MG (2024). Carrageenans as biostimulants and bio-elicitors: plant growth and defense responses. Stress Biology 4, 3.
Sahu A, Mostofa MG, Weraduwage SM, Sharkey TD (2023). Hydroxymethylbutenyl diphosphate accumulation reveals MEP pathway regulation for high CO2-induced suppression of isoprene emission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 120 (41) e2309536120.
Mahmud S, ……., Mostofa MG (2023). Acetic acid positively modulates proline metabolism for mitigating PEG-mediated drought stress in maize and Arabidopsis. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14, 1167238.
Ha CV, Mostofa MG*, …….., Tran LSP (2022). The histidine phosphotransfer AHP4 plays a negative role in Arabidopsis plant response to drought. The Plant Journal, 111,1732–1752.
Mostofa MG, ……, Tran LSP (2022). Karrikin receptor KAI2 coordinates salt tolerance mechanisms in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant and Cell Physiology, 63(12): 1927–1942
Tian H, ………, Mostofa MG, (8 authors), Li W (2022). KARRIKIN UPREGULATED F-BOX 1 negatively regulates drought tolerance in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 190: 2671–2687.
Abdelrahman M, ………, Mostofa MG, ………, Tran LSP (2021). Defective cytokinin signaling reprograms lipid and flavonoid gene-to-metabolite networks and mitigates high salt stress in Arabidopsis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). 118 (48): e2105021118.
Mostofa MG, ……., Tran LSP (2021). Strigolactones regulate arsenate uptake, vacuolar-sequestration and antioxidant defense responses to resist arsenic toxicity in rice roots. Journal of Hazardous Materials 415: 125589.
Rahman MM, Mostofa MG, ………, Tran LSP (2021). Adaptive mechanisms of halophytes and their potential in soil salinity remediation. International Journal of Molecular Science 22(19): 10733.
Keywords:
Plant secondary metabolism, environmental stress, phytohormones, oxidative stress, signaling molecules, climate change, photosynthesis, isoprene, transcriptomics, metabolomics, gene function and regulation, antioxidant defense, gas exchange, light respiration, redox balance, stress adaptation, molecular plant physiology