Professor Paul Dupree named a 2017 Highly Cited Researcher

We are thrilled by the news that Professor Paul Dupree, our project Co-I has been named a 2017 Highly Cited Researcher,with the Dupree group’s research among the top 1% most cited works in the field of plant and animal biology. 

Professor Dupree commented that: “I’m very proud to be named a 2017 Highly Cited Researcher. This reflects the outstanding work of our group members over many years to produce reproducible, exciting findings addressing the big, important questions in science that directly impact society.”

The Dupree group has contributed substantially to three major areas of plant biochemistry and cell biology. A selection of their papers are listed below:

Cell wall digestion:

• Insights into the oxidative degradation of cellulose by a copper metalloenzyme that exploits biomass components.

Quinlan, Sweeney, Lo Leggio et al., PNAS 108:15079 (2011).

• The molecular basis of polysaccharide cleavage by lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases.

Frandsen, Simmons, Dupree et al., Nat. Chem. Biol. 12:298 (2016).

• Structural and electronic determinants of lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase reactivity on polysaccharide substrates.

Simmons, Frandsen, Ciano et al., Nat. Commun. 8:1064 (2017).

• Structure and boosting activity of a starch-degrading lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase.

Lo Leggio, Simmons, Poulsen et al., Nat. Commun. 6:5961 (2015).

Cell wall synthesis:

• Absence of branches from xylan in Arabidopsis gux mutants reveals potential for simplification of lignocellulosic biomass.

Mortimer, Miles, Brown et al., PNAS 107:17409 (2010).

• Characterization of IRX10 and IRX10-like reveals an essential role in glucuronoxylan biosynthesis in Arabidopsis.

Brown, Zhang, Stephens et al., Plant J. 57:732 (2009).

• Glycosyl transferases in family 61 mediate arabinofuranosyl transfer onto xylan in grasses.

Anders, Wilkinson, Lovegrove et al., PNAS 109:989 (2012).

• Golgi-localized STELLO proteins regulate the assembly and trafficking of cellulose synthase complexes in Arabidopsis.

Zhang, Nikolovski, Sorieul et al., Nat. Commun. 7:11656 (2016).

Cell wall architecture:

• The pattern of xylan acetylation suggests xylan may interact with cellulose microfibrils as a twofold helical screw in the secondary plant cell wall of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Busse-Wicher, Gomes, Tryfona et al., Plant J. 79:492 (2014).

• Folding of xylan onto cellulose fibrils in plant cell walls revealed by solid-state NMR.

Simmons, Mortimer, Bernardinelli et al., Nat. Commun. 7:13902 (2016).

• An even pattern of xylan substitution is critical for interaction with cellulose in plant cell walls.

Grantham, Wurman-Rodrich, Terrett et al., Nat. Plants 3:859 (2017).