Frank You

Research Scientist

Research in genomics and bioinformatics of crops, especially wheat and flax. Primarily working on plant bioinformatics, quantitative genetics and statistical genomics, genome sequencing, genome evolution, and software tool and database development

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

960 Carling Avenue, K.W. Neatby, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0C6

Current research and/or projects

Genetic and epigenetic variants of Canadian cereal crops for breeding and functional analysis; GRDI project.
Integrated genomics, plant pathology and breeding research for improvement of Fusarium Head Blight resistance in Canadian cereals; WGRF project.
Characterization of rust resistance genes of flax; ADF project.
Early-maturing dry bean variety and germplasm development for Manitoba and Western Canada; CAP pulse cluster.
Pre-breeding platform for Canadian wheat improvement; CAP wheat cluster.
Genomics and molecular markers to identify resistance genes in flax; CAP project.
4DWheat: diversity, domestication, discovery and delivery; Genome Canada and AAFC project.
Targeted and useful genomics for barley and oat; AAFC project.

Research and/or project statements

Development of a new generation of flax refeence genome.
QTL identification and gene mining for the traits of inportance, especially seed yield and disease resistance in flax and wheat.
Development of a genomic selection strategy to maximize prediction accuracy and reducing selection cost through minimizing the number of markers.
Development of bioinfomatics tools amd databases to facilitate analysis of a large amount of genomic and phenotypic data and gene mining.

Education and awards

Ph.D. Plant Genetics and Breeding (Statistical Genetics), Nanjing Agricultural University, 1989
MSc Plant Genetics and Breeding (Statistical Genetics), Nanjing Agricultural University, 1985
BSc Computer Science, University of Manitoba, 1999
BSc Agronomy, Sichuan Agricultural University, 1982

Additional links

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_You

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=-VC-tGUAAAAJ&hl=en

Key publications

Toward evidence that homologs of RPW8 act through salicylic acid signaling in powdery mildew resistance in flax
Vanessa Clemis1,2, Mohsin Zaidi, Frank You3, Chunfang Zheng3, Sylvie Cloutier3, and Bourlaye Fofana1
1Charlottetown Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 440 University Avenue, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, C1A 4N6, Canada
2University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, C1A 4P3, Canada
3Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C6, Canada
*bourlaye.fofana@agr.gc.ca
Powdery mildew (PM) is an obligate biotrophic fungus (Podosphaera lini) causing high yield loss to flax (Linum usitatissimum L.). To date, no PM resistance genes have been fully functionally characterized. Using GWAS, we identified a locus harboring three flax homologs of the Arabidopsis RPW8 genes that confer broad-spectrum resistance to powdery mildew. Here, we characterized the gene expression profile of the three RPW8 candidate genes following PM inoculation. The data showed that, similar to RPW8.2 acting through the salicylic acid (SA) signaling pathway, the RPW8 homologs Lus10000835 and Lus10000836 are highly expressed in resistant flax lines compared to the suscpetible lines. In contrast, the flax RPW8 homolog Lus10009328 was highly expressed in the susceptible lines, suggesting a different signaling pathway from the other two homologs. RPW8.1 has been shown to activate ethylene signaling through aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate oxidase gene isoform 4 (ACO4) and, this elevated ethylene negatively regulates the expression of RPW8.1, thereby attenuating its mediated-cell death and disease resistance when no disease is present to avoid unnecessary defense responses. We conclude that PM resistance induced by RPW8 in flax may mainly be activated through SA signaling pathways, and perhaps similarly to the ethylene signaling in Arabidopsis.
2023 - View publication details
Cloutier S, Zheng C, Rashid K, Molina O, Edwards T, Lévesque-Lemay, Froese S, Jackle K, House M, Young L, Booker H, Ta’ran B, You F (2023) Fusarium wilt resistance in flax is controlled by a major gene on chromosome 1. Flax Genomics Workshop, Proc 30th Plant and Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, CA, Jan 13-18 (oral – invited)
2023 - View publication details
You FM, Cloutier S (2023) Multi-trait multi-model QTL mapping strategies in flax. Proc 30th Plant and Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, CA, Jan 13-18 (Oral presentation)
2023 - View publication details
Vasudevan A, Zheng C, Ens J, Pozniak CJ, You FM, Cloutier S (2023) SHW × elite wheat backcross introgression lines: Is there any bias in retention of SHW genome fraction during pre-breeding? Proc 30th Plant and Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, CA, Jan 13-18, PO0521 (poster)
2023 - View publication details
Cloutier S, Sertse D, Ravichandran S, Duguid S, Soto-Cerda BJ, You FM (2022) Gene banks for crop improvement under climate change: a case study of flax drought. ProciNorte-NORGEN – Task Force on Genetic Resouces, Nov 15, Virtual (oral – invited)
2022 - View publication details
Agricultural Innovations (Volume V) https://collab.agr.gc.ca/br-dg/stb-dgst/Documents/Annual%20Publications/Agricultural%20Innovations%20Vol%20V.pdf
2022 - View publication details
Cloutier S, Fedak G, Fatima F, Bartaula S, McCallum B, Henriquez MA, Blackwell B, Aboukhaddour R, Foster A, Hiebert C, Humphreys G, McCartney C, Pozniak C, You F (2022) Tapping into wild relatives to improve wheat. ProciNorte Disease Task Force Webinars - Wheat & Grapes: Mitigating the effects brought on by climate change, Sept 13 & 15, Virtual (oral – invited)
2022 - View publication details
Khadka B, Lévesque-Lemay M, Edwards T, Zheng C, Ens J, Chawla HS, You FM, Pozniak CJ, Cloutier S (2022) Transcriptome analysis and annotation of multiple Aegilops genomes. 2nd International Wheat Congress, Beijing, China, Sept 12-16 (e-poster)
2022 - View publication details
Cloutier S, Fedak G, Fatima F, Bartaula S, McCallum B, Henriquez MA, Blackwell B, Aboukhaddour R, Foster A, Hiebert C, Humphreys G, Mccartney C, Pozniak C, You F (2022) Wheat Pre-breeding: the struggle(s) and potential. Proc. 37th Plant Sciences Graduate Students’ Symposium 2022, March 4-5, Virtual (oral)
2022 - View publication details
Cloutier S, Fedak G, Fatima F, Bartaula S, McCallum B, Henriquez MA, Blackwell B, Aboukhaddour R, Foster A, Hiebert C, Humphreys G, McCartney C, Pozniak C, You F (2021) The challenges and promises of pre-breeding. Can Soc Plant Biol – Eastern Regional Meeting. Virtual, Nov 27 (oral keynote plenary)
2021 - View publication details
Suo, R.Z., Mwaniki, A., Zheng, C.F., Jia, B., You, F.M., Conner, R.L., Xu, W.1 and Hou, A. QTL identification of seed hardness traits in a diverse genetic panel of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Poster presentation. Bean Improvement Cooperative Biennial Meeting (Virtual), November 2-3, 2021.
2021 - View publication details
Xu, W., Tucker, J.R., Bekele, W.A., You, F.M., Fu, Y.B., Khanal, R., Yao, Z., Singh, J., Boyle, B., Beattie, A.D., Belzile, F., Mascher, M., Tinker, N.A., Badea, A. (2021). Genome assembly of the canadian two-row malting barley cultivar AAC synergy. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, [online] 11(4), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkab031
2021 - View publication details
Sertse, D., You, F.M., Ravichandran, S., Soto-Cerda, B.J., Duguid, S., Cloutier, S. (2021). Loci harboring genes with important role in drought and related abiotic stress responses in flax revealed by multiple GWAS models. Theoretical and Applied Genetics (TAG), [online] 134(1), 191-212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00122-020-03691-0
2021 - View publication details
Khan, N., You, F.M., Datla, R., Ravichandran, S., Jia, B., Cloutier, S. (2020). Genome-wide identification of ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter and heavy metal associated (HMA) gene families in flax (Linum usitatissimum L.). BMC Genomics, [online] 21(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07121-9
2020 - View publication details
Fatima, F., McCallum, B.D., Pozniak, C.J., Hiebert, C.W., McCartney, C.A., Fedak, G., You, F.M., Cloutier, S. (2020). Identification of New Leaf Rust Resistance Loci in Wheat and Wild Relatives by Array-Based SNP Genotyping and Association Genetics. Frontiers in Plant Science, [online] 11 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.583738
2020 - View publication details
Yao, Z., You, F.M., N'Diaye, A., Knox, R.E., McCartney, C., Hiebert, C.W., Pozniak, C., Xu, W. (2020). Evaluation of variant calling tools for large plant genome re-sequencing. BMC Bioinformatics, [online] 21(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12859-020-03704-1
2020 - View publication details
Lan, S., Zheng, C., Hauck, K., McCausland, M., Duguid, S.D., Booker, H.M., Cloutier, S., You, F.M. (2020). Genomic prediction accuracy of seven breeding selection traits improved by QTL identification in flax. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, [online] 21(5), http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21051577
2020 - View publication details
Fatima F, McCallum B, Hiebert C, McCartney C, Fedak G, Pozniak C, Edwards T, Ravichandran S, You FM, Cloutier S (2020) Single and multi-locus genome-wide association study for leaf rust resistance in cultivated, progenitor and wild wheat. Proc 28th Plant and Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, USA, Jan 11-15, PO0937
2020 - View publication details
Cloutier S, You F, Rashid K, Zheng C, Lam S, Khan N, He L, Xiao X, Yao J, Li P (2020) Insights into genetic structure and genomic prediction of powdery mildew resistance in flax (Linum usitatissimum L.). Proc 28th Plant and Animal Genome Conference, San Diego, USA, Jan 11-15, PO0499
2020 - View publication details
Soto-Cerda, B.J., Cloutier, S., Gajardo, H.A., Aravena, G., Quian, R., You, F.M. (2020). Drought response of flax accessions and identification of quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) governing agronomic and root traits by genome-wide association analysis. Molecular Breeding, [online] 40(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11032-019-1096-y
2020 - View publication details