Ruth Welti

Associate Professor of Biology  

Developing and implementing mass-spectrometry-based lipid profiling strategies to understand the roles of particular lipids, as well as genes and proteins involved in lipid metabolism and lipid signaling.

B.S. 1976, University of Connecticut

Ph.D. 1982, Washington University, St. Louis

Postdoctoral Fellowship 1982-1984, University of Kansas Medical Center

Phone: 785-532-6241

Fax: 785-532-6653

Email: welti@ksu.edu

Office: 508 Ackert Hall

The focus of my research program since 2000 has been on the development of a quantitative, high-throughput, mass-spectrometry-based lipid profiling technology and the application of this technology to identify alterations in lipid metabolism that occur as results of signaling events and/or stress responses.  Through ongoing collaboration with researchers working in Arabidopsis, an organism that is particularly genetically tractable and relatively easy to grow and manipulate, we have been able to put into practice a very efficient lipid profiling technology.  Funded by NSF, Kansas NSF EPSCoR, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, Kansas Biomedical Infrastructure Network, and Kansas State, we have established the Kansas Lipidomics Research Center (I am serving as Director) and its fee-for-service lipid profiling analytical laboratory at Kansas State, we have developed high-throughput, quantitative methods for all the major lipid polar classes in plants, yeast, and animals (altogether over 400 species), and we have examined the role of lipids in physiological responses.

In plants, stresses that lead to alterations in lipid metabolism include drought, cold, freezing, wounding, pathogens, and insect pests. Utilizing plants with genetic alterations, in collaboration with others, we are profiling lipids to determine the function of genes involved in these processes.  My lab’s role in the collaborative projects is to develop new technologies, to perform the lipid profiling data collection and processing, and to aid in data interpretation. Additionally, we are identifying and developing methods to quantify previously undescribed lipids in Arabidopsis.

Selected Publications

Welti, R., and X. Wang. 2004. Lipid species profiling: A high throughput approach to identify lipid compositional changes and determine the function of genes involved in lipid metabolism and signaling.  Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.  7: 337-344.

Nandi, A., R. Welti and J. Shah. 2004. The Arabidopsis thaliana dihydroxyacetone phosphate reductase gene supressor of fatty acid desaturase deficiency1 is required for glycerolipid metabolism and for the activation of systemic acquired resistance. Plant Cell 16: 465-477.

Welti, R., X. Wang, and T.D. Williams.  2003.  Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry scan modes for plant chloroplast lipids. Anal. Biochem. 314: 149-152.

Welti, R., W. Li, M. Li, Y. Sang, H. Biesiada, H. Zhou, C.B. Rajashekar, T.D. Williams, and X. Wang.  2002.  Profiling membrane lipids in plant stress responses: Role of phospholipase D{alpha} in freezing-induced lipid changes in Arabidopsis. J. Biol. Chem. 277: 31994-32002.

For More Information

KSU Lipid Signaling/Lipidomics Group: http://www.ksu.edu/lipid/

Kansas Lipidomics Research Center: http://www.ksu.edu/lipid/lipidomics/