Yulin Jia

Research Molecular Plant Pathologist, USDA ARS/Adjunct Associate Professor

National Rice Research Center, University of Arkansas
2890 Highway 130 E., Stuttgart, AR 72160
Phone: (870) 672-9300 ext. 229, yulin.jia@ars.usda.gov

Education

B.S.-Esq. Xichang University
M.S.- University of Florida
Ph.D.- Purdue University

Service

Member of Stuttgart Location Safety Committee, 2002-present
Member of Graduate Committee (2001-present)
Supervise graduate students (2001-present).
Member of International Organizing Committee identified speakers and topics for the 2nd International Conference on Plant Molecular Breeding (2006-07)
Member of International Organizing Committee identified speakers and topics for the 4th International Organizing Committee for Rice Blast Conference in Changsha, China, 2007
Member for Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Biotechnology Committee, American Phytopathological Society (2001-07)
Member of Biotechnology Impact Assessment Committee, American Phytopathological Society (2003-05)
Member (2005-present) and Chairman (2005) of Biotechnology committee, American Phytopathological Society
Vice Chairman (2003) and Chairman (2004) of Biotechnology Impact Assessment Committee, American Phytopathological Society

Courses Taught

Annually assist in teaching of “Diseases of Economic Crops” to plant pathology graduate students. I advise several graduate students and serve on numerous graduate student committees.

Research Emphasis

Research in my lab is the Molecular Plant Pathology component of the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center. Our mission as a part of the National Program is to conduct basic research on rice that forms the basis for improved protection against rice diseases.
My interest primarily is in basic research in plant pathology. Specifically, I have been involved in elucidating molecular mechanisms of plant-pathogen interactions using the rice blast system as a model. I have also been involved in exploring novel approaches to characterize new resistance resources against the sheath blight pathogen Rhizoctonia solani. I have used a wide range of tools of genetics, molecular, pathological and genetic engineering to characterize novel sources of plant resistance to biotic factors. These tools include: genetics (mutagenesis and mapping); molecular (DNA, RNA and protein analysis, protein-protein interaction using the yeast two-hybrid system and far-western, cDNA and genomic library construction and characterization and DNA marker development); pathological (uniform infection) and genetic engineering (transient and stable gene expression).

Honors and Awards

Selected to have biography published in Outstanding Professional of Color in the Environmental Field for a book entitled “The Paths We Tread II” edited by Sarah Cwiek, Minority Environmental Leadership Initiative at the University of Michigan, Anne Arbor, MI, 2008.
The USDA SPA Early Career Scientist Award for 2006 for significant contributions to molecular pathology and the development of a novel method to increase breeding efficiency for improved resistance.

Publications

Jia, Y*. and Martin, R. 2008. Identification of a new locus Ptr (t) required for rice blast resistance gene Pi-ta-mediated resistance. MPMI 21:396-403. (* The corresponding author)
Jia, Y*., Gealy, D. Lin, M., Wu, L., and Black, H. 2008. Carolina foxtail (Alopecurus carolinianus): Susceptibility and suitability as an alternative host to rice blast disease [Magnaporthe oryzae (formerly Magnaporthe grisea)]. Plant Disease 92:504-507. (* The corresponding author)
Liu, G., Bernhardt, J., Jia, M.H. and Jia, Y*. 2008. Molecular characterization of the recombinant inbred line population derived from a japonica-indica rice cross. Euphytica 169: 73-82. (* The corresponding author)
Cheng, C., Yun, K.-Y., Ressom, H., Mohanty, B., Bajic, V.B., Jia, Y., Yun, S. and de los Reyes, B. G. 2007. An early response regulatory cluster induced by low temperature and hydrogen peroxide in chilling tolerant japonica rice. BMC Genomics 18: 175.
*Venu, R.C., *Jia, Y., *Gowda, M., Jia, M.H., Jantasuriyarat, C., Stahlberg, E., Li, H., Rhineheart, A., Boddhireddy, P., Singh, P., Rutger, J.N., Kudrna, D., Wing, R., Nelson, J.C. and Wang, G. 2007. RL-SAGE and microarray analysis of the rice transcriptome after Rhizoctonia solani infection. Mol. Genet. and Genomics 278: 421-431 (*Equal contributor)
Wang*, Z., Lin, H., Valent, B, Rutger, J.N. and Jia, Y*. 2007. Cytological and molecular analyses of disease resistance to the rice blast fungus. Chinese J. of Rice Sci. 14: 302-310. (*The corresponding author).
Wamishe, Y., Jia, Y.* Singh, P., Cartwright, R. D. 2007. Identification of field isolates of Rhizoctonia solani to detect quantitative resistance in rice under greenhouse conditions. Frontier of Agriculture in China 1: 361-367. (* The corresponding author).
Zhou, E., Jia, Y.,* Correll, J. and Lee, F.N. 2007. Instability of the Magnaporthe oryzae avirulence gene AVR-Pita alters virulence. Fungal Genetics and Biology 44: 1024-1034 (* The corresponding author).
Wang, Z., Jia, Y*, Rutger, J.N. and Xia, Y. 2007. Rapid survey for presence of a blast resistance gene Pi-ta in rice cultivars using the dominant DNA markers derived from portions of the Pi-ta gene. Plant Breeding 126: 36-42. (* The corresponding author).
Jia, Y*., Correa-Victoria, F., McClung, A., Zhu, L., Liu, G., Wamishe, Y., Xie, J., Marchetti, M. A., M. Pinson, S. R., Rutger, J. N. and Correll, J. C. 2007. Rapid determination of rice cultivar responses to the sheath blight pathogen Rhizoctonia solani using a micro-chamber screening method. Plant Disease 91: 485-491 (* The corresponding author).
Olsen, K.M., Caicedo, A.L. and Jia, Y. 2007. Evolutionary genomics of weedy rice in the USA. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology 49: 811-816.
Eizenga, G.C., H.A. Agama, Lee, F. N. and Jia, Y. 2006. Identifying novel resistance genes in newly introduced blast resistant rice germplasm. Crop Sci. 46: 1870-1878.
Wang, Z. and Jia, Y. 2006. Induction and preliminary analysis of a rice lesion mimic mutant. Lmm1. J. of Nuclear Agr. Sci. 20: 255-258. (In Chinese, English abstract).
Jia Y. 2005. Registration of lesion mimic mutant of Katy rice. Crop Sci. 45: 1675.
Wang, Z., Redus, M. and Jia, Y. 2005. Establishment of codominant markers for rice blast resistance gene Pi-ta. Chinese J. of Rice Sci. 19: 483-488. (In Chinese, English abstract).
Wang, Z., Jia, Y., Fjellstrom, R.G. 2005. Analysis f blast resistance in two japonica cultivars Katy and Kaybonnet. Journal of Jiangsu Agricultural Science 1 45-49, (In Chinese).
Jia, Y., Wang, Z., Fjellstrom, R.G., Moldenhauer, K. A. K., Azam, M.A., Correll, J., Lee F.N., Xia Y. and Rutger J. N. 2004. Rice Pi-ta gene confers resistance to the major pathotypes of the rice blast fungus in the US. Phytopathology 94: 296-301.
Jia, Y., Redus, M., Wang, Z., and Rutger, J.N. 2004. Development of a SNLP marker from the Pi-ta blast resistance gene by tri-Primer PCR. Euphytica 138: 97-105.
Wang, Z., Jia, Y., and Xia, Y. 2004. Advances on molecular mechanism of disease resistance in plants. Chinese Bulletin of Botany 21: 521-530, (In Chinese, English abstract).
Wang, Z., Jia, Y. and Xia, Y. 2004. Molecular markers-assisted selection of the rice blast resistance gene Pi-ta. Acta Agronomica Sinica 30 (12): 1259-1265 (In Chinese, English abstract).
Jia, Y., Valent, B. and Lee, F. N. 2003. Determination of host responses to Magnaporthe grisea on detached rice leaves using a spot inoculation method. Plant Dis. 87: 129-133.
Jia, Y. 2003. Marker assisted selection for the control of rice blast disease. Pesticide Outlook 14: 150-152.
Jia, Y., Bryan, G.T., Farrall, L. and Valent, B. 2003. Natural variation at the Pi-ta rice blast resistance locus. Phytopathology 93: 1452-1459.
Jia, Y., Wang, Z. and Singh, P. 2002. Development of dominant rice blast resistance Pi-ta gene markers. Crop Sci. 42: 2145-2149.
Jia, Y., McAdams, S. A., Bryan, G. T., Hershey, H. and Valent, B. 2000. Direct interaction of resistance gene and avirulence gene products confers rice blast resistance. EMBO J. 19: 4004-4014.
Bryan, G.T., Wu, K-S. Farrall, L., Jia, Y., Hershey, H. P., McAdams, S., Tarchini, R., Donaldson, G., Faulk, K. and Valent, B. 2000. A single amino acid difference distinguishes resistant and susceptible alleles of the rice blast resistance gene Pi-ta. Plant Cell 12: 2033-2045.
Jia, Y., Loh, Y.-T., Zhou, J. and Martin, G. B. 1997. Alleles of Pto and Fen occur in bacterial speck-susceptible and fenthion-insensitive tomato cultivars and encode active protein kinases. Plant Cell 9: 61-73.
Jia, Y. and Martin, G. 1999. Rapid transcript accumulation of pathogenesis-related genes during an incompatible interaction in bacterial speck disease-resistance tomato plants. Plant Mol. Biol. 40: 455-465.
Tang, X., Frederick, R., Zhou, J., Halterman, D. A., Jia, Y. and Martin. G. 1996. Initiation of plant disease resistance by physical interaction of AvrPto and Pto kinase. Science 274: 2060-2063.

BOOK CHAPTERS :

Lee S., Costanzo S. and Jia, Y. 2008. The structure and regulation of genes and consequences of their genetic mutations. IAEA for book titled ‘Mutations in Plant’ edited by Q. Shu et al. 2007 (In press)
Jia, Y. and Valent, B. 2007. Molecular aspects of rice blast resistance: Insights from structural and functional analysis of the Pi-ta and AVR-Pita gene pair. Pages 207-236 In Rice Improvement in the Genomic Era. S. Data eds. Howard Press (in press, in the fall).
Gowda, M., Venu, R.C., Jia, Y., Stahlberg, E., Pampanwar, V., Soderlund, C. and Wang, G. L. 2006. Use of RL-SAGE analysis to identify novel fungal and plant genes involved in host-pathogen interactions. In: Ronald PC (ed) "Methods in Molecular Biology Vol: 353 Plant-Pathogen Interactions". Human Press Inc., Totowa, NJ. pp. 131-143.
Jia, Y., Zhou, E., Winston, E., Singh, P., Correll, J., Lee, F.N. and Valent, B. 2006. Molecular co-evolution of the rice Pi-ta resistance gene and Magnaporthe oryzae avirulence gene AVR-Pita. In: Biology of Plant-Microbe Interactions Vol. 5. Edited by F. Sanchez, C. Quinto, I.M. Lopez-Lara, and O. Geiger 12th Intern. Symp. on Plant-Microbe Interact. IS-MPMI, St. Paul. pp. 325-331.
Bryan, G.T., Jia, Y., Farrall, L., Wu, K., Hershey, H.P., McAdams, S.A., Tarchini, R., Faulk, K., Donaldson, G., and Valent, B. 2000. Molecular characterization of resistance gene/Avirulence gene interactions in the rice blast system. In: Biology of plant-microbe interactions. Proceedings of the 9th international symposium on plant-microbe interactions. Amsterdam, Netherlands, USA. Pgs: 35-39. Valent, B., Bryan, G.T., Jia, Y., Farrall, L., McAdams, S.A., Foulk, K., and Hershey, H.P. 2001. Molecular interactions between the rice blast resistance gene Pi-ta and its corresponding avirulence gene. In: Delivery and Perception of Pathogen Signals in Plants. Eds. N. T. Keen, J. E. Leach and S. Mayama . APS Press, St Paul, MN. Pgs: 174-183.
Martin, G. B., Tang, X., Zhou, J., Frederick, R., Jia, Y. and Loh, Y.-T. Signal recognition and transduction in bacterial speck disease resistance of tomato. In G. Stacey, P.M. Gresshoff (ed.) Biology of Plant-Microbe Interactions. Proced of 8th Intern. Symp. on Plant-Microbe Interact. IS-MPMI, St. Paul. pp. 9-14. 1996.