A grant has been awarded to Drs. Andrea Schwarzbach at Kent State University and Robert P. Adams at Baylor University to produce the evolutionary relationships of the Juniper trees of the world using a complete collection of this group that was assembled by Dr. Adams. Junipers are the second largest group of conifers in the world. There are about 104 taxa of juniper (Juniperus) trees and shrubs that are found in North America, Europe, Asia, and east Africa. The purpose of this project is to determine the Life Tree (the species' relationships) among the junipers and relate these relationships to the solution of problems of cedar (juniper) allergies, range land improvement, historical biogeography and soil erosion as well as providing a basis for the continued search for biologically active compounds such as anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer compounds. The project will utilize DNA sequencing to gather the data for building the Life Tree as well as data on the volatile leaf oils, morphology and ecology that Dr. Adams has collected over the past 30 years. One of the genes sequenced is a pollen allergen gene that will allow us to study DNA sequence variation of an allergen gene on a worldwide basis. This grant will be used to train two graduate and several undergraduate students involving them in original research. An important aspect of this project is the collaboration with scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX. These scientists are working on a vaccine for immunization against cedar allergy (affecting over 30% of Americans). The pollen allergen gene that causes the cedar allergy is too virulent in American junipers to be used to make antibodies. However, the structure of this allergy gene appears to be different in more distantly related junipers from Mexico, Europe, Asia and Africa. One (or more) of these more distantly relatives of our local cedars will contain a suitable allergy gene that is able to cause the allergic reaction but not too virulent and can be utilized to produce a future vaccine.
