Plant Nutrition and Genomics Lab · Valdivia, Chile

From the lab to the field

We study how plants sense and coordinate the use of sulfur and nitrogen. We combine bioinformatics, transcriptomics, molecular biology and physiology to find regulatory genes that improve growth and yield in wheat and other crops.

Our research

@fromthelabtothefield

16

S

Sulfur · 32.06

7

N

Nitrogen · 14.007

Lab team harvesting wheat in a field trial — Wheat field trial, UACh Experimental Station.

Research

Current projects

From a candidate gene in wheat roots to a yield trial in the field.

FONDECYT Regular · Nº 1230833

The TaNLP5 regulatory network under sulfur deficiency in wheat

We test whether the transcription factor TaNLP5 controls the sulfur-deficiency response in wheat roots, identify its target genes, and measure how its overexpression affects sulfur use efficiency and grain yield.

Overexpressor lines + RNA-seq
Direct target genes by combining RNA-seq and DAP-seq
Two-year field trial with overexpressor lines

iBio · Millennium Institute

Millennium Institute for Integrative Biology

We are part of iBio, which studies how environmental perturbations (nitrogen, light, temperature) and biological interactions control plants and fungi, including time-dependent genetic programs.

ibio.cl ↗

See all our research lines →

Team

Who we are

Dr. Javier Canales

Principal Investigator

Dra. Anita Arenas

Research Associate

Angelo Riquelme

Research Assistant

Denisse Guerra

Research Assistant

Genaro Soto

PhD student

Antonia Salvo

Undergraduate thesis student

David Ruíz

Undergraduate thesis student

Juan Garcinuño

Undergraduate thesis student

Meet the team and our alumni →

Publications

Recent publications

Lab members in bold.

Integrative multi-omics analysis reveals stress-specific molecular architectures in soybean under drought and rust infection NEW

Husein G, Castro-Moretti FR, Prado M, Amorim L, Mazzafera P, Canales J, Monteiro-Vitorello CB

2026 · BMC Genomics 27 · DOI ↗

Organ-level gene-regulatory networks inferred from transcriptomic data reveal context-specific regulation and highlight novel regulators of ripening and ABA-mediated responses in tomato NEW

Fernández JD, Navarro-Payá D, Santiago A, Cerda A, Canan J, Contreras-Riquelme S, Moyano TC, Landaeta-Sepúlveda D, Melet L, Canales J, Johnson NR, Álvarez JM, Matus JT, Vidal EA

2025 · Plant Communications 6(11):101499 · DOI ↗

Sulfate deficiency-responsive microRNAs in tomato uncover an expanded and functionally integrated regulatory network NEW

Landaeta-Sepúlveda D, Johnson NR, Morales-Espinoza J, Tobar M, Sánchez E, Fernández JD, Olivares-Yáñez C, Medina J, Canales J, Vidal EA

2025 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences 26(17):8392 · DOI ↗

The trade-off between grain weight and grain number in wheat is explained by the overlapping of the key phases determining these major yield components

Vicentin L, Canales J, Calderini DF

2024 · Frontiers in Plant Science 15:1380429 · DOI ↗

Gene regulatory networks underlying sulfate deficiency responses in plants

Fernández JD, Miño I, Canales J, Vidal EA

2024 · Journal of Experimental Botany 75(10):2781–2798 · DOI ↗

See all publications →

News