Assistant Professor
Rooms 150 & 10 George Lynn Cross Hall
770 Van Vleet Oval
Norman, OK 73019
405-325-1653 (office)
405-325-3176 (lab)
lbartley@ou.edu

B.A., Swarthmore College, 1995
Ph.D., Stanford University, 2002
Postdoc, AAAS Science Policy Fellow, USDA, 2002-2004
Postdoc, Univ of California, Davis, 2005-2010

Research Areas:  Plant Biology, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology

Research interests:

My research currently seeks to illuminate the regulation, biosynthesis and breakdown of plant cell walls. I am particularly interested in grass cell walls due to their diversification relative to dicotyledenous species and the abundance of grasses in managed and unmanaged ecosystems. Grass cell walls represent a promising source of chemical energy for next generation biofuel production. My groups’ approach to this problem is multifaceted and includes the following:

• Functional genomics of rice and other model grasses to develop and test hypotheses focusing on grass-diverged aspects of cell wall content regulation and biosynthesis.
• Population genetics in switchgrass to identify desirable cell wall variation and associated genetic polymorphisms toward identifying the genetic causes of cell wall quality and switchgrass genotypes that convert to biofuels more efficiently.
• Biochemistry of enzymes involved in grass-diverged aspects of cell wall biosynthesis toward understanding substrate specificity and integration into cellular metabolism.
• Microscopy and physiology to understand regulation of cell wall degradation/remodeling during plant development, in particular the regulation of the cell wall remodeling processes that occur to permit emergence of roots past overlying tissues.

Relevant publications:
Sharma, M.K., Sharma, R., Cao, P., Jenkins, J., Bartley, L.E., Grimwood, J., Rokhsar, D., Schmutz, J. and Ronald, P.C. (Submitted) “A genome-wide survey of switchgrass genome structure and organization.” PLoS ONE.

Bartley, L.E., Wu, Y., Saathoff, A., and Sarath, G. (In Press) “Switchgrass Genetics and Breeding Challenges” in Biomass Crops: Breeding and Genetics, Ed. Saha, M., Wiley-Blackwell.

Seo, Y.S., Chern, M.S., Bartley, L.E., Richter, T.E, Han, M., Jung, K.H., Lee, I., Walia, H., Xu, X. Cao, P., Bai, W., Ramanan, R., Amonpant, F., Arul, L., Canlas, P.E., Ruan, D.L., Hwang, S., Jeon, J.-S. and Ronald, P.C. (2011) “Toward Establishment of a Rice Stress Interactome.” PLoS Genetics 7(4):e1002020.

Bartley, L.E. and Ronald, P.C. (2009) “Plant and Microbial Research Seeks Biofuel Production from Lignocellulose.” California Agriculture J. 63: 178-184

Cao, P., Bartley, L.E., Jung, K.-H., Ronald, P.C. (2008) “Construction of a Rice Glycosyltransferase Phylogenomic Database and Identification of Rice-Diverged Glycosyltransferases.” Molecular Plant 1: 858-877.