Reginald Storms, PhD

Education

PhD (Alberta)

Research interests

Fungi and bacteria are nature's major decomposers recycling the organic matter in dead plants and animals. Fungi are therefore specialized in the production of a wide variety of secreted enzymes that degrade organic matter, particularly the complex polymers produced by photosynthetic plants, which are the world's most abundant source of carbon-based renewable energy. We are characterizing secreted enzymes produced by fungal saprophytes with the goal of identifying enzymes for several environmental and industrial applications. Research efforts directed at achieving this goal include (i) advancing our understanding of fungal protein secretion through gene deletion, conditional gene expression and transcriptome analysis (ii) developing plasmid vectors and host strains for the production of secreted proteins, and (iii) high throughput biochemical analysis and applications testing of fungal secretome proteins.

Sydenham R, Zheng Y, Tsang A, Powlowski J and Storms R. Biochemical characterization of four fungal endo-1,4-β-xylanases expressed in Aspergillus Submitted to industrial partners for IP consideration Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2013 Oct 2. [Epub ahead of print]

Tambor JH, Ren H, Ushinsky S, Zheng Y, Riemens A, St-Francois C, Tsang A, Powlowski J and Storms R. Recombinant expression, activity screening and functional characterization identifies three novel endo-1,4-beta-glucanases that efficiently hydrolyse cellulosic substrates. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 2012:93:203-214

Decelle B, Tsang A, Storms R. Cloning, functional expression and characterization of three Phanerochaete chrysosporium endo-1,4-beta-xylanases. Current Genetics 2004 46:166-175

Giaever G et al.  Functional profiling of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Nature 2002 418:387-91

Winzeler EA et al.  Functional Characterization of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome by gene deletion and parallel analysis. Science 1999 285:901-906

Nagarajan L and Storms R. Molecular characterization of CGV3 the Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene encoding the glycine cleavage system H-protein. Journal of Biological Chemistry 1997 272: 4444-4450

Ushinsky SC, Bussey H, Ahmed A, Wang Y, Friesen J, Williams BA and Storms R. Histone H1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 1997 Yeast 13:151-161

Bussey H, Storms RK, Ahmed A, et al. The nucleotide sequence of chromosome XVI from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 1997 Nature 387:103-105

Bussey H, Kaback DB, Zhong W, Vo DT, Clark MW, Fortin N, Hall J, Ouellette BFF, Keng T, Barton AB, Su Y, Davies CJ, and Storms R The nucleotide sequence of chromosome I from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 1995 92:3809-3813

McIntosh EM, Ord RW, Storms R. Transcriptional regulation of the cell cycle-dependent thymidylate synthase gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Molecular and Cellular Biology 1988 8:4616-24

Patent applications

Tsang, A., Powlowski, J., Butler, G., Storms, R. (2011) Cell wall deconstruction enzymes and uses thereof; 05015656-64USPR.

Tsang, A., Powlowski, J., Butler, G., Storms, R. (2011) Novel cell wall deconstruction enzymes and uses thereof; 05015656-63USPR.

Tsang, A., Powlowski, J., Butler, G., Storms, R., Mohrmann, L., Mutsaers, J. "Novel xylanase enzyme XYL001 and uses thereof, Filed at European Patent Office, Dec. 21 2007, WO2008075884 http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jspWO=2008074884.

Jiang B, R. Storms, T. Roener and H Bussey. Nucleic acids of Aspergillus fumigatus encoding industrial enzymes and methods of use. US Patent application 10/213,990   2006 Application No/Patent No. 06126761.3-2401.

Tsang A, Bourbonnais R, Butler G, Storms R and Varin L “Novel lipase and its uses thereof” US provisional patent deposited on November 22, 2005, 15656-27USPR) (NSERC).

Tsang A, Butler G, Powlowski J and Storms R. Novel cellulase and its uses thereof. 15656-28USPR.
Storms RK, Sillaots S, Martinez-Perez A and Tsang A (2000) A multifunctional system for the efficient manipulation of protein expression in filamentous fungi.  International application PCT/CA00/01084 (NSERC).