Molecular Phylogeny of Juniperus of the World

肯特州立大学的安德里亚·施瓦茨巴赫博士和贝勒大学的罗伯特·P·亚当斯博士获得了一项资助，以利用亚当斯博士收集的这一组的完整集合来研究世界上杜松树的进化关系。刺柏是世界上第二大针叶树种。在北美、欧洲、亚洲和东非发现了大约104个刺柏(Juniperus)乔木和灌木分类群。该项目的目的是确定刺柏之间的生命树(物种关系)，并将这些关系与解决雪松(刺柏)过敏、牧场土地改良、历史生物地理和土壤侵蚀等问题联系起来，并为继续寻找生物活性化合物，如抗真菌、抗细菌和抗癌化合物提供基础。该项目将利用DNA测序来收集用于构建生命树的数据，以及亚当斯博士在过去30年中收集的挥发性叶油、形态和生态数据。被测序的基因之一是花粉过敏原基因，它将使我们能够在全球范围内研究过敏原基因的DNA序列变异。这笔助学金将用于培训两名研究生和几名本科生，让他们参与原创研究。该项目的一个重要方面是与德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿的德克萨斯大学医学部的科学家合作。这些科学家正在研究一种疫苗，用于预防雪松过敏(影响超过30%的美国人)。导致雪松过敏的花粉过敏原基因在美国刺柏中毒性太强，不能用来制造抗体。然而，这种过敏基因的结构在来自墨西哥、欧洲、亚洲和非洲的远亲刺柏中似乎有所不同。这些本地雪松的一个(或多个)远亲将含有一种合适的过敏基因，该基因能够引起过敏反应，但不会太致命，可以用来生产未来的疫苗。

A grant has been awarded to Drs. Andrea Schwarzbach at Kent State University and Robert P. Adams at Baylor University to produce the evolutionary relationships of the Juniper trees of the world using a complete collection of this group that was assembled by Dr. Adams. Junipers are the second largest group of conifers in the world. There are about 104 taxa of juniper (Juniperus) trees and shrubs that are found in North America, Europe, Asia, and east Africa. The purpose of this project is to determine the Life Tree (the species' relationships) among the junipers and relate these relationships to the solution of problems of cedar (juniper) allergies, range land improvement, historical biogeography and soil erosion as well as providing a basis for the continued search for biologically active compounds such as anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer compounds. The project will utilize DNA sequencing to gather the data for building the Life Tree as well as data on the volatile leaf oils, morphology and ecology that Dr. Adams has collected over the past 30 years. One of the genes sequenced is a pollen allergen gene that will allow us to study DNA sequence variation of an allergen gene on a worldwide basis. This grant will be used to train two graduate and several undergraduate students involving them in original research. An important aspect of this project is the collaboration with scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX. These scientists are working on a vaccine for immunization against cedar allergy (affecting over 30% of Americans). The pollen allergen gene that causes the cedar allergy is too virulent in American junipers to be used to make antibodies. However, the structure of this allergy gene appears to be different in more distantly related junipers from Mexico, Europe, Asia and Africa. One (or more) of these more distantly relatives of our local cedars will contain a suitable allergy gene that is able to cause the allergic reaction but not too virulent and can be utilized to produce a future vaccine.