Luca Comai

About

Luca Comai is a Distinguished Professor in Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on the genetics and function of plant chromosomes, with particular interest in mechanisms through which plants attain genome stability and their manipulation for efficient genome engineering. His work investigates the structure of polyploid genomes, haploid induction, uniparental genome elimination, and sex determination. His systems include Arabidopsis, potato, mint, camelina, poplar, and persimmon. Comai's contributions advance understanding of plant genome dynamics and have implications for plant breeding and biotechnology.

Research topics

• Genetics
• Biology
• Computational biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Medicine

Selected publications

• The persimmon genome reveals clues to the evolution of a lineage-specific sex determination system in plants

  PLoS Genetics · 2020 · 116 citations

  Most angiosperms bear hermaphroditic flowers, but a few species have evolved outcrossing strategies, such as dioecy, the presence of separate male and female individuals. We previously investigated the mechanisms underlying dioecy in diploid persimmon (D. lotus) and found that male flowers are specified by repression of the autosomal gene MeGI by its paralog, the Y-encoded pseudo-gene OGI. This mechanism is thought to be lineage-specific, but its evolutionary path remains unknown. Here, we devel…

  DOI

• A variety of changes, including CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated deletions, in CENH3 lead to haploid induction on outcrossing

  Plant Biotechnology Journal · 2020 · 105 citations

  Creating true-breeding lines is a critical step in plant breeding. Novel, completely homozygous true-breeding lines can be generated by doubled haploid technology in single generation. Haploid induction through modification of the centromere-specific histone 3 variant (CENH3), including chimeric proteins, expression of non-native CENH3 and single amino acid substitutions, has been shown to induce, on outcrossing to wild type, haploid progeny possessing only the genome of the wild-type parent, in…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Epigenetically mismatched parental centromeres trigger genome elimination in hybrids

  Science Advances · 2021 · 70 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  eggs and early zygotes, while wild-type CENH3 persists. In the hybrid zygotes and embryos, CENH3 and essential centromere proteins load preferentially on the CENH3-rich centromeres of the wild-type parent, while CENH3-depleted centromeres fail to reconstitute new CENH3-chromatin and the kinetochore and are frequently lost. Genome elimination is opposed by E3 ubiquitin ligase VIM1. We propose a model based on cooperative binding of CENH3 to chromatin to explain the differential CENH3 loading rate…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A TILLING by sequencing approach to identify induced mutations in sunflower genes

  Scientific Reports · 2021 · 24 citations

  The Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes (TILLING) technology is a reverse genetic strategy broadly applicable to every kind of genome and represents an attractive tool for functional genomic and agronomic applications. It consists of chemical random mutagenesis followed by high-throughput screening of point mutations in targeted genomic regions. Although multiple methods for mutation discovery in amplicons have been described, next-generation sequencing (NGS) is the tool of choice for mut…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Allopolyploidy expanded gene content but not pangenomic variation in the hexaploid oilseed <i>Camelina sativa</i>

  Genetics · 2024-11-15 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Ancient whole-genome duplications are believed to facilitate novelty and adaptation by providing the raw fuel for new genes. However, it is unclear how recent whole-genome duplications may contribute to evolvability within recent polyploids. Hybridization accompanying some whole-genome duplications may combine divergent gene content among diploid species. Some theory and evidence suggest that polyploids have a greater accumulation and tolerance of gene presence-absence and genomic structural var…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• The Regulatory Disruption Hypothesis for Heterosis

  NSF · $499k · 2009–2012

• Efficient Identification of Induced Mutations in Crop Species by Ultra-High Throughput DNA Sequencing

  NSF · $2.0M · 2008–2012

• Rapid and Targeted Introgression of Traits via Genome Elimination

  NSF · $1.6M · 2015–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Isabelle Henry

  University of California, Davis

  74 shared

• Steven Henikoff

  Fred Hutch Cancer Center

  60 shared

• Brian P. Dilkes

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  54 shared

• Bradley J. Till

  University of California, Davis

  41 shared

• Supachitra Chadchawan

  Chulalongkorn University

  32 shared

• Elizabeth A. Greene

  Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

  26 shared

• Teerapong Buaboocha

  Chulalongkorn University

  26 shared

• Anand P. Tyagi

  New York University

  25 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Plant Pathology

  University of California Davis

  1980

• M.S., Plant Pathology

  Washington State University

  1978

• Bachelor (equivalent), Agricultural sciences

  Universita degli Studi di Bologna

  1976

Awards & honors

• Two CBS Plant Biologists Elected to National Academy of Scie…

Similar researchers at University of California, Davis

• Blake Meyersh-126
• Alan B. Bennetth-93
• Eduardo Blumwaldh-86