Associate Professor of Horticulture
Michael Gutensohn, associate professor of horticulture, has earned his diploma in biology from the Julius-Maximilians University at Wűrzburg, Germany, where he specialized in plant physiology. While pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Cologne in Germany, and during a subsequent post-doctoral position at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, Dr. Gutensohn worked on multiple projects studying metabolite and protein transport processes in plants using biochemical and genetic approaches. While at Purdue University for a second post-doctoral position he was introduced to his current research topic - the biosynthesis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in plants and their various biological functions. His research interests include plant-insect interactions such as plant defenses against herbivores and pollinator attraction to flowers, flavor compounds in horticultural fruit crops, specialized metabolites in medicinal plants, classical genetic and metabolic engineering approaches to introduce or improve desired VOC traits into crop plants, and mechanisms regulating the flux in complex metabolic networks involved in terpene formation in plants. Dr. Gutensohn is also involved in steering the operations of the Analytical Biochemistry Core Lab in the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences.
Publications
- Wang F., Park Y.L., and Gutensohn M.‡ (2020) Glandular trichome-derived sesquiterpenes of wild tomato accessions (Solanum habrochaites) affect aphid performance and feeding behavior. Phytochemistry 180, 112532
- Wang F., Park Y.L., and Gutensohn M.‡ (2021) Glandular trichome-derived mono- and sesquiterpenes of tomato have contrasting roles in the interaction with the potato aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae. Journal of Chemical Ecology 47, 204-214.
- Wang F., Park Y.L., and Gutensohn M.‡ (2021) Epidermis-specific metabolic engineering of sesquiterpene formation in tomato affects the performance of potato aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae. Frontiers in Plant Science 12, 793313.
-
Gutensohn M., and Dudareva N.‡ (2016) Tomato fruits – a platform for metabolic engineering of terpenes. Methods in Enzymology 576, 333-359.
-
Gutensohn M.‡, Henry L.K., Gentry S., Lynch J.H., Nguyen T.T.H., Pichersky E., and Dudareva N. (2021) Overcoming bottlenecks for metabolic engineering of sesquiterpene production in tomato fruits. Frontiers in Plant Science 12, 691754.
- Zhou F., Wang C.Y., Gutensohn M., Jiang L., Zhang P., Zhang D., Dudareva N.‡, and Lu S.‡ (2017) A recruiting protein of geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase controls metabolic flux toward chlorophyll biosynthesis in rice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 114, 6866-6871.
-
Gutensohn M.‡, Hartzell E., and Dudareva N. (2022) Another level of complex-ity: The role of metabolic channeling and metabolons in plant terpenoid metabolism. Frontiers in Plant Science 13, 954083.
- Larcenaire C., Wang F., Holásková I., Turcotte R., Gutensohn M., and Park Y.L.‡ (2021) Characterization of the insect assemblage and associated floral volatiles of black cherry (Prunus serotina). Plants 10, 2195.