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| Name |
Cao, Xiaofeng |
| Location
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Chinese Academy of Sciences |
| Primary Field
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Plant Biology |
 Election Citation
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Cao has revolutionized scientific understanding of epigenetic regulation, arginine methylation and non-coding RNAs with contributions towards hybrid rice breeding. |
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Research Interests
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Xiaofeng Cao 's laboratory is interested in understanding epigenetic mechanisms in higher plants. They have identified a dozen key factors to uncover how histone methylation and demethylation, as well as small RNAs metabolism controlling transposon activities governing genome stability and plant development. They have identified the first histone H3K27 demethylase REF6 and demonstrated novel sequence-specific targeting mechanism of REF6 to counteract Polycomb-mediated gene silencing. They have discovered that Arabidopsis protein arginine methyltransferase 5 is required for the recruitment of NineTeen complex for spliceosome activation genome-wide pre-mRNA splicing, demonstrating how arginine methylation links chromatin regulation to transcript processing. Transposable elements (TEs) and repetitive sequences make up over 35% of the rice genome. TE mobilization can disrupt genome stability and most organisms have evolved diverse mechanisms to regulate TE activity. Using rice as a model, they have built a connection between proper epigenetic modifications with transposition of transposons with regard to their local chromatin niche, and further experimentally demonstrated the impact of transposon-derived small RNAs on nearby gene expression for controlling important agricultural traits. They have identified the first thermo-sensitive genic male sterility controlling gene, which is broadly utilized in hybrid rice breeding. |
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