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Plant Biology Home

Phone: (612) 625-1234
Fax: (612) 625-1738

Department of Plant Biology
University of Minnesota
250 Biological Science Center
1445 Gortner Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108

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John M. Ward

Associate Professor, Department of Plant Biology
Ph.D., University of Maryland, 1991

Membrane proteins and transport physiology

Contact Information

Mailing Address:

Dr. John Ward
Department of Plant Biology
University of Minnesota
250 Biological Science Center
1445 Gortner Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108

Office: 618 Biological Sciences Center
Phone: (612) 625-4763
Fax: (612) 625-1738
E-mail: jward@umn.edu
Web Site: Ward Lab

Research Interests

Membrane proteins, such as pumps, ion channels, transporters, and receptors control the flow of nutrients and other solutes into and out of cells and cellular organelles. Research in my lab is directed at understanding the role of solute transport in physiological processes of plants such as nutrient acquisition, phloem function (long-distance transport), and signal transduction. We use the tools of molecular biology, electrophysiology, and genomics to study membrane protein structure/function and transgenic approaches to understand the roles of genes encoding membrane proteins in plants.

Selected Publications

Sivitz AB, Reinders A, Ward JM. Arabidopsis sucrose transporter AtSUC1 is important for pollen germination and sucrose-induced anthocyanin accumulation. Plant Physiol. 2008 May;147(1):92-100.

Ward JM, Mäser P, Schroeder JI. Plant Ion Channels: Gene Families, Physiology, and Functional Genomics Analysis. Annu Rev Physiol. 2008 Oct 8.

Zhao J, Cheng NH, Motes CM, Blancaflor EB, Moore M, Gonzales N, Padmanaban S, Sze H, Ward JM, Hirschi KD. AtCHX13 is a plasma membrane K+ transporter. Plant Physiol. 2008 Oct;148(2):796-807.

Morris J, Tian H, Park S, Sreevidya CS, Ward JM, Hirschi KD. AtCCX3 is an Arabidopsis endomembrane H+ -dependent K+ transporter. Plant Physiol. 2008

Padmanaban, S., Chanroj, S., Kwak, J., Li, X., Ward, J. M. and Sze, H. (2007) Participation of an endomembrane cation/H+ exchanger AtCHX20 in osmoregulation of guard cells. Plant Physiol.144: 82-93.

Sivitz, A. B., Reinders, A., Johnson, M., Krentz, A. D., Grof, C. P. L., Perroux, J. M. and Ward, J. M. (2007) Arabidopsis sucrose transporter AtSUC9: high affinity transport activity, intragenic control of expression and early-flowering phenotype. Plant Physiol. 143: 188-198.

Reinders, A., Sivitz, A.B., Hsi, A., Grof, C.P.L., Perroux, J.M. and Ward, J.M. (2006). Sugarcane ShSUT1: analysis of sucrose transport activity and inhibition by sucralose. Plant Cell Env. (in press)

Bock, K.W., Honys, D., Ward, J.M., Padmanaban, S., Nawrocki, E., Hirschi, K.D., Twell, D., and Sze, H. (2006). Integrating Membrane Transport with Male Gametophyte Development and Function through Transcriptomics. Plant Physiol. 240:1151-1168.

Reinders, A., Panshyshyn, J.A., Ward, J.M. (2005). Analysis of transport activity of Arabidopsis sugar alcohol permease homolog AtPLT5. J. Biol. Chem. 280, 1594-1602.

Shigaki, T., Kole, M., Ward, J.M., Sze, H., Hirschi, K.D. (2005). Cre-loxP recombination vectors for the expression of Riken Arabidopsis full-length cDNAs in plants. Biotechniques. 39:301-302.

Sivitz, A.B., Reinders, A., Ward, J.M. (2005). Analysis of the Transport Activity of Barley Sucrose Transporter HvSUT1. Plant Cell Physiol. 46:1666-1673).

Shigaki, T., Vyzasatya, R.R., Sivitz, A.B., Ward, J.M., Sze, H., Hirschi, K.D. (2005). The Cre-loxP recombination-based reporter system for plant transcriptional expression studies. Plant Mol. Biol. 58:65-73.

Dietrich, D., Hammes, U., Thor, K., Suter-Grotemeyer, M., Fluckiger, R., Slusarenko, A.J., Ward, J.M., Rentsch, D. (2004). AtPTR1, a plasma membrane peptide transporter expressed during seed germination and in vascular tissue of Arabidopsis. Plant J. 40:488-499.

Sze, H., Padmanaban, S., Cellier, F., Honys, D., Cheng, N.H., Bock, K.W., Conejero, G., Li, X., Twell, D., Ward, J.M., Hirschi, K.D. (2004). Expression Patterns of a Novel AtCHX Gene Family Highlight Potential Roles in Osmotic Adjustment and K+ Homeostasis in Pollen Development. Plant Physiol. 136:2532-2547.

Chandran, D., Reinders, A., Ward, J.M. (2003) Substrate specificity of the Arabidopsis thaliana sucrose transporter AtSUC2. J Biol Chem. 278 (45):44320-44325.

Lahner, B., Gong, J., Mahmoudian, M., Smith, E.L., Abid, K.B., Rogers, E.E., Guerinot, M.L., Harper, J.F., Ward, J.M., McIntyre L, Schroeder JI, Salt DE. (2003) Genomic scale profiling of nutrient and trace elements in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nat Biotechnol. (Nat Biotech) 21 (10):1215-1221.

Ward, J.M., Hirschi, K.D., Sze, H. (2003) Plants pass the salt. Trends Plant Sci. 8: 200-201.

Reinders, A., Schulze, W., Kuhn, C., Barker, L., Schulz, A., Ward, J.M., Frommer, W.B. (2002) Protein-protein interactions between sucrose transporters of different affinities colocalized in the same enucleate sieve element. Plant Cell. 14:1567-1577.

Reinders, A., Schulze, W., Thaminy, S., Stagljar, I., Frommer, W.B. and Ward, J.M. (2002) Intra- and intermolecular interactions in sucrose transporters at the plasma membrane detected by the split-ubiquitin system and functional assays. Structure 10(6): 763-772.

Ward, J. M. (2001) Identification of novel families of membrane proteins from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Bioinformatics 17(6):560-563.

Reinders, A. and Ward, J. M. (2001) Functional characterization of the a-glucoside transporter Sut1p from Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the first fungal homologue of plant sucrose transporters. Molec. Microbiol. 39: 445-455.

Maser, P., Thomine, S., Schroeder, J.I., Ward, J.M., Hirschi, K., Sze, H., Talke, I.N., Amtmann, A., Maathuis, F.J., Sanders, D., Harper, J.F., Tchieu, J., Gribskov, M., Persans, M.W., Salt, D.E., Kim, S.A., Guerinot, M.L. (2001) Phylogenetic relationships within cation transporter families of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. 126:1646-1667.