Oregon State University

The Cannabaceae Family, Which Includes Cannabis Sativa (HEMP) and Humulus Lupulus (hop), Constitutes a Multi-billion-dollar Industry in the Us, With Over One Billion Dollars in Sales for Oregon Alone. Hemp and Hop Are High-value Ingredients, Prized for Their Production of Specialized Metabolites and Pharmacologically Relevant Effects. the Flowers of Both Plants Are Valuable for Flavor and Aroma, There Is a Need for Research on Alleles That Control the Biosynthesis of Terpenes and Other Volatile Organic Compounds (vocs). There Is a Need for Comparative Approaches for Studying Hop and Hemp to Reveal How They Evolved, Diverged, and What Genotypes May Regulate Production of Flavor and Aroma Compounds.objective 1: Build a Web-accessible Infrastructure to Study the Comparative Genomics and Metabolomics of the Cannabaceae. We Will Create a Web-accessible Framework for Comparative Genomics in Hop and Hemp, and for Organizing Available Data on Voc Abundance. We Will Identify Orthologous Gene Groups, and Build a Comparative Genomics Infrastructure for Hop and Hemp.objective 2: Characterize the Conservation and Variability of Voc Pathways in Hop and Hemp. We Will Quantify Voc Levels Using GC-MS, and Gene Expression Using Rna-seq. We Will Compare Co-expression Networks Between Hop and Hemp, and Characterize the Conservation of Voc Pathways.objective 3: Characterize the Functional Properties of Metabolites and Variants. We Will Build Co-expression Networks for Both Transcript and Metabolite Expression. We Will Identify Genomic Variants Associated With Metabolite Expression. We Will Validate the Role of These Alleles in the Activity of Enzymes in an in Vitro Context.