Nanna Bjarnholt

Kort præsentation

Research area

Plants produce a multitude of complex metabolites to navigate their interaction with the environment, e.g. as defense compounds. Some of these compounds are used by humans for medicine, food supplements, color pigments etc, while others are important determinants of crop plants’ nutritional value for humans and fodder crops for animals. For a number of years I have been investigating the physiological roles and catabolism of cyanogenic glycosides, mainly using the crop plant sorghum as a model, but also Lotus japonicus, cassava, barley and almond. Cyanogenic glycosides serve important roles in plants as deterrents of attack from herbivores and microorganisms. However, they also serve other, less investigated, roles in plants, and most of my research has focused on elucidating these functions and the associated enzymatic pathways. This work has caused me to frequently discover atypical enzymatic functions, one of them a reductive cleavage reaction carried out by glutathione transferase enzymes (GSTs) in a pathway for recovery of nitrogen from cyanogenic glucosides. The enzyme family of GSTs is large and complex and with very few identified physiological functions. With a young investigator grant from the VILLUM Foundation my group will now focus on revealing other functions of GSTs in specialized metabolism.

Projects

• GSTspecial: Glutathione transferases in plant specialized metabolism. Identification of GST functions to shed light onto mysterious enzyme family and identify new tools for future pathway discovery.
• Physiological functions of cyanogenic glucosides and related compounds, in crop plants and model plants.
• Advancing mass spectrometry imaging for plant tissues

Web

• http://plantplasticity.ku.dk/research/metabolic/
• http://plen.ku.dk/english/research/plant_biochemistry/cgvsc/

Key technologies

• Mass spectrometry imaging
• Metabolomics; state-of-the-art LC-MS and GC-MS
• Transcriptomics
• Molecular cloning,  heterologous expression, in vitro enzyme assays
• Mutant plant characterization

Major Collaborations

Associate Professor Christian Janfelt - Mass spectrometry imaging - Dept. of Pharmacy, University of Copenhagen
Professor Robert Edwards - Glutathione transferases, biology, expression and analyses - School of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development, Newcastle University, UK

Professor Ian Godwin – Sorghum transformation, CRISPR-CAS, mutant population – University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Professor Roslyn Gleadow - Sorghum mutant population - Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Current funding

VILLUM Young Investigator grant, The VILLUM Foundation, Denmark, grant number 19151

Co-PI of VILLUM Research Center for Plant Plasticity (www.plantplasticity.ku.dk), The VILLUM Foundation, Denmark, grant number VKR023054

Selected publications

1. Bjarnholt, N., Neilson, E.H., Crocoll, C., Nielsen, L.J., Jørgensen, K., Motawia, M.S., Olsen, C.E., Dixon, D.P., Edwards, R., Møller, B.L. (accepted March 2018). Nitrogen recycling from cyanogenic glucosides in Sorghum bicolor is mediated by glutathione transferases. Plant J. In press.
2. Mnich, E., Vanholme, R., Oyarce, P., Liu, S., Lu, F., Goeminne, G., Jørgensen, B., Motawie, M.S., Boerjan, W., Ralph, J., Ulvskov, P., Møller, B.L., Bjarnholt, N., Harholt, J. (2017). Degradation of lignin β-aryl ether units in Arabidopsis thaliana expressing LigD, LigF and LigG from Sphingomonas paucimobilis SYK-6. Plant Biotech. J. doi: 10.1111/pbi.12655
3. Nielsen, L. J., Stuart, P., Pičmanová, M., Rasmussen, S., Olsen, C. E., Harholt, J., Møller, B. L. & Bjarnholt, N. (2016). Dhurrin metabolism in the developing grain of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench investigated by metabolite profiling and novel clustering analyses of time-resolved transcriptomic data. BMC Genomics 17 (1): 1021 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-016-3360-4
4. Pičmanová, M. , Neilson, E.H., Motawia, M.S., Olsen, C.E. , Agerbirk, N., Gray, C.J., Flitsch, S., Meier, S., Silvestro, D., Jørgensen, K., Sánchez-Pérez, R., Møller, B.L., Bjarnholt, N. (2015). A recycling pathway for cyanogenic glycosides evidenced by the comparative metabolic profiling in three cyanogenic plant species. Biochem. J. 469 (3): 375-389 doi: 10.1042/BJ20150390
5. Bjarnholt, N., Li, B., D'Alvise, J., Janfelt, C. (2014). Mass spectrometry imaging of plant metabolites - principles and possibilities. Nat. Prod. Rep. 31 (6):818-837 doi: 
   10.1039/C3NP70100J
6. Li, B., Knudsen, C., Hansen, N.K., Jørgensen, K., Kannangara, R., Bak, S., Takos, A., Rook, F., Hansen, S.H., Møller, B.L., Janfelt, C., Bjarnholt, N. (2013). Visualizing metabolite distribution and enzymatic conversion in plant tissues by desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging. Plant J. 74 (6): 1059-1071. doi: 10.1111/tpj.12183

CV

Education

2010: Completed the teaching course “University Science Teaching and Learning”
2007: Obtained the PhD degree in Plant Biochemistry at University of Copenhagen
2003: MSc in Environmental Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, UCPH

Positions

Since 2014: Associate Professor, Section for Plant Biochemistry, Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, UCPH
2008-2014: Post doc at Section for Plant Biochemistry, Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, UCPH 2004-2007: PhD fellow, at Section for Plant Biochemistry, Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, UCPH
2003-2004: 2004 Research assistant, at Section for Plant Biochemistry, Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, UCPH

Fellowships, grants and awards

2017: VILLUM Young Investigator Grant, awarded by the VILLUM Foundation, Denmark
2012: Co-author of application for research center of excellence: VILLUM Research Center for Plant Plasticity (www.plantplasticity.ku.dk), awarded by The VILLUM Foundation, DK
2008: Co-applicant of the five-year project: “Merger of Primary and Secondary Metabolism”, awarded by the Danish Research Council
2008: Two-year personal postdoctoral fellowship awarded by UCPH
2007: Salary bonus in open competition for setup, maintenance and colleague assistance with LC-MS equipment awarded by Dept. of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, UCPH
2005: Travel grant from the PhD association “Jordbrugsakademikerne” to attend course in modern analytical chemistry in Turku, Finland.
2004: PhD scholarship, awarded by Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (2004-2007)

Commissions of trust

Since 2010: Peer review of several manuscripts submitted to the scientific journals Phytochemistry, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, Scientific Reports
2015: Chairman of opponents for PhD-defense (internal member of committee), UCPH

Supervision

I am currently principal supervisor of one PhD student and co-supervisor of one postdoc fellow.
2005-2016: Principal supervisor of one Phd, one MSc and three BSc projects. Co-supervisor of four PhD and two BSc projects as well as a number of theme project student reports.

Teaching activities

Since 2017: Biochemistry 2; specialized metabolites (second year BSc students)
2015: Biochemistry 2; amino acids (second year BSc students)
Since 2015: Biochemistry 1 (second year students)
Since 2012: Censoring written and oral exams at first year chemistry course
Since 2008: Plant Genomics; metabolomics (third year BSc students)
2011: Guest lecturer; Beer and Wine course (graduate students)
2009: Guest lecturer; Molecular Plant Biochemistry and Physiology (graduate students)
2005-2013: Responsible for Lab exercise in Biochemistry 2
2005-2007: Tutor; Lab exercises in Experimental Molecular Biology

All within University of Copenhagen

Institutional responsibilities

Since 2015: Member of a Department committee for developing the subject of plant breeding
Since 2015: Member of the Senior Staff Coordination Group at Section for Plant Biochemistry
2015: Co-organizer of LC-MS workshop for colleagues
Since 2013: Elected scientific staff representative in Departmental Council
2011: Member of a committee for restructuring of the Department
2009-2011: Organizer at own initiative of internal seminar series “Science micro-workshops” aimed at facilitating collaborations between sections of the department

Outreach

Since 2006: Teaching high school students about PCR, genetic engineering and specialized metabolites
Since 2004: Popular science festivals, lectures about specialized metabolites and genetic engineering