B. W. Poovaiah is a researcher in plant signal transduction, particularly the roles of calcium ions and calmodulin. His laboratory's research connects these intracellular signals to plant growth and responses to other organisms.[ref]
B. W. Poovaiah research profile at Washington State University. Research summary: calcium/calmodulin-mediated signaling and plant growth
With K. Veluthambi, B. W. Poovaiah investigated how auxin affects developing strawberries. Removing the surface achenes stopped growth and altered the pattern of polypeptides detected by SDS-PAGE. Applying the synthetic auxin naphthaleneacetic acid restored growth and the appearance of several development-associated polypeptides.[ref]
Auxin-regulated polypeptide changes at different stages of strawberry fruit development by K. Veluthambi and B. W. Poovaiah. Abstract: achene removal, synthetic-auxin rescue and protein-gel comparisons
The experiment illustrates a useful strategy for investigating a biological signal: remove its normal source, then ask whether supplying a candidate signal restores the response. Recovery of both growth and a molecular readout makes the proposed connection more informative than a simple correlation between fruit size and protein abundance. The SDS-PAGE bands report molecular changes; their appearance alone does not identify each protein's function.
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