Hong Zhang, Ph.D.

Research Interests

World population continues to grow, but food production has not been growing in pace with the population growth. Because agricultural land has been declining worldwide due to soil erosion, urban development, and salinization, food security is a major challenge that we must face, as we need to produce at least 75% more food by 2050 when the world population reaches 9 billion. Research on how plants grow, develop, and respond to environmental stresses will help us find solutions to make agricultural production sustainable. Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, and heat waves cause huge losses in agricultural productivity worldwide. If we improve crops’ tolerance to these stresses, we would be able to produce more food and fiber in arid and semi-arid regions of the world, making food production sustainable. We are using genetic engineering approach to improve cotton, soybean and maize’s tolerance to limited irrigation, elevated temperature, and saline conditions, thereby producing higher yields of these crops in the arid and semiarid regions of the world.

Selected Publications (All publications available upon request)

• Esmaeili, N., Wijewardene, I., and Zhang, H. (2023). Co-overexpression of two or more genes to achieve higher tolerance to single as well as multiple stresses in plants: from Arabidopsis to cotton. In Multiple Abiotic Stress Tolerances in Higher Plants Addressing the Growing Challenges (Ed. Gupta, N.K., Shavrukov, Y., Singhal, R.K., Borisjuk, N.). Routledge and CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, London, U.K. 
• Sugumar, T., Shen, G., Smith, J., and Zhang, H. (2024). Creating climate-resilient crops by increasing drought, heat, and salt tolerance. Plants, 13 (9), 1238. 
• Balasubramaniam, T., Mathangadeera, R., Tharanya, S., Wijewardene, I., Sun, L., Smith, J., Shen, G., Zhang, H. (2025). Co-overexpression of OsSIZ1 and LtRCA in Arabidopsis thaliana improves heat, drought, and salt tolerance. Plant Science, 357, 112536. 
• Esmaeili, N., Hussin, A., Jin, S., Zhang, J., and Zhang, H. (2025). Genetic Engineering in cotton: Techniques and Practices. In The Cotton Genome (Ed. Chittaranjan Kole, Jinfa Zhang, and Yuxuan Zhu). Springer Nature, New York. 
• Zhang, H. (2023). A breakthrough in cotton transformation technology. Journal of Cotton Research, 6:8.
• Balasubramaniam, T., Guoxin Shen, G., Nardana Esmaeili, N., and Zhang, H. (2023). Plants’ response mechanisms to salinity stress. Plants, 12, 2253.
• Chen, T., Li, G., and Zhang, H. (2023). Editorial: Advances in peanut research. Frontiers in Plant Science. 
• Smith, J., Wijewardene, I., Cai, Y., Esmaeili, N., Shen, G., Hequet, E., Ritchie, G., Jones, D., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2023). Co-overexpression of RCA and AVP1 in cotton substantially improves fiber yield for cotton under drought, moderate heat, and salt tolerance. Current Research in Biotechnology. 
• Cao, H., Ren, W., Gao, H., Lü, X., Zhao, Q., Zhang, H., Rensing, C., and Zhang, J. (2023). HaASR2 from Haloxylon ammodendron confers drought and salt tolerance in plants. Plant Science, 328, 111572. 
• Esmaeili, N., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2022). Genetic manipulation for abiotic stress resistance traits in crops. Frontiers in Plant Science. 
• Balasubramaniam, T., Wijewardene, I., Hu, R., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2022). Co-overexpression of AVP1, PP2A-C5, and AtCLCc in Arabidopsis thaliana greatly increases tolerance to salt and drought stresses. Environmental and Experimental Botany. 104934. 
• Zhu, X., Shen, G., Wijewardene, I., Cai, Y., Esmaeili, N., Sun, L., Zhang, H. (2021). The B’ζsubunit of protein phosphatase 2A negatively regulates ethylene signaling in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. Biochem. 169, 81-91.
• Wijewardene, I., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2021). Enhancing crop yield by using Rubisco activase to improve photosynthesis under elevated temperatures. Stress Biology, 1:2. 
• Esmaeili, N., Cai, Y., Tang, F., Zhu, X., Smith, J., Mishra, N., Hequet, E., Ritchie, G., Jones, D., Shen, G., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2021). Towards doubling fiber yield for cotton in the semiarid agricultural area by increasing tolerance to drought, heat, and salinity simultaneously. Plant Biotech. J. 19, 462-476. 
• Ganapathy, S., Parajulee, Megha, P., San Francisco, M., Zhang, H., Bilimoria, S. (2021). Novel-iridoviral kinase induces mortality and reduces performance of green peach aphids (Myzus persicae) in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Plant Biotech. Rep. 15, 13-25. 
• Hu, W., Chen, L., Qiu, X., Wei, J., Lu, H., Sun, G., Ma, X., Yang, Z., Zhu, C., Hou, Y., Han, X., Sun, C., Hu, R., Cai, Y., Zhang, H., Li, F., Shen, G. (2020). AKR2A participates in the regulation of cotton fiber development by modulating biosynthesis of very-long-chain fatty acids. Plant Biotech. J, 18, 526-539.  
• Wijewardene, I., Mishra, N., Sun, L., Smith, J., Zhu, X., Payton, P., Shen, G. and Zhang, H. (2020). Improving drought-, salinity-, and heat-tolerance in transgenic plants by co-overexpressing Arabidopsis vacuolar pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 and Larrea Rubisco activase gene RCA. Plant Sci. 296, 110499. 
• Chen, L., Hu, W., Mishra, N., W., Lu, H., Hou, Y., Qiu, X., Yu, S., Wang, C., Zhang, H., Cai, Y., Sun, C., Shen, G. (2020). AKR2A interacts with KCS1 to improve VLCFAs contents and chilling tolerance of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J. 
• Esmaeili, N., Yang, X., Cai, Y., Sun, L., Zhu, X., Shen, G., Payton, P., Fang, W., and Zhang. H. (2019). Co-overexpression of AVP1 and OsSIZ1 in Arabidopsis substantially enhances plant tolerance to drought, salt, and heat stresses. Sci. Rep. 9, 7642.
• Sun, L., Pehlivan, N., Esmaeili, N., Jiang, W., Yang, X., Jarrett, P., Mishra, N., Zhu, X., Cai, Y., Herath, M., Shen, G., Zhang, H. (2018). Co-overexpression of AVP1 and PP2A-C5 in Arabidopsis makes plants tolerant to multiple abiotic stresses. Plant Sci., 274, 271-283. 
• Zhu, X., Sun, L., Kuppu, S., Hu, R., Mishra, N., Smith, J., Esmaeili, N., Herath, M., Gore, M., Payton, P., Shen, G., Zhang, H. (2018). The yield difference between wild-type cotton and transgenic cotton that expresses IPT depends on when water-deficit stress is applied. Sci. Rep. | 8:2538 | 
• Welsch, R., Zhou, X., Yuan, H., Alvarez, D., Sun, T., Schlossarek, D., Yang, Y., Shen, G., Zhang, H., Rodriguez-Concepcion, M., Thannhauser, T., and Li, L. (2018). Clp protease and OR directly control the proteostasis of phytoene synthase, the critical enzyme for carotenoid biosynthesis in Arabidopsis. Mol. Plant. 11, 149-162. 
• Jiang, W., Sun, L., Yang, X., Wang, M., Esmaeili, N., Pehlivan, N., Zhao, R., Zhang, H., and Zhao, Y. (2017). The effects of transcription directions of transgenes and the gypsy insulators on the transcript levels of transgenes in transgenic Arabidopsis. Sci. Rep. | 7: 14757 | 
• Mishra, N., Sun, L., Zhu, X., Smith, J., Srivastava, A.P., Yang, X., Pehlivan, N., Esmaeili, N., Luo, H., Shen, G., Jones, D., Auld, D., Burke, J., Payton, P., Zhang, H. (2017). Overexpression of the rice SUMO E3 ligase gene OsSIZ1 in cotton enhances drought and heat tolerance, and substantially improves fiber yields in field under reduced irrigation and rainfed conditions. Plant Cell Physiol., Vol. 58, pp. 735-746. 
• Hu, R., Zhu, Y., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2017). Overexpression of the PP2A-C5 gene confers increased salt tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Sig. Beh., Vol. 12, No. 2, e1276687.
• Hu, R., Zhu, Y., Wei, J., Chen, J., Shen, G., H. Shi., and Zhang, H. (2017). Overexpression of PP2A-C5 that encodes the catalytic subunit 5 of protein phosphatase 2A in Arabidopsis confers better root and shoot development under salt conditions. Plant Cell Environment, 40,150-164. 
• Hu, W., Chen, L., Qiu, X., Lu, H., Wei, J., Bai, Y., He, N., Hu, R., Sun, L., Zhang, H., Shen, G. (2016). Morphological, physiological and proteomic analyses provide insights into the improvement of castor bean productivity of a dwarf variety in comparing with a high-stalk variety. Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol. 7, Article 1473. 
• Pehlivan, N., Sun, L., Jarrett, P., Yang, X., Mishra, N., Chen, L., Kadioglu, A., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2016). Co-overexpressing a plasma membrane sodium/proton antiporter and a vacuolar membrane sodium/proton antiporter significantly improves salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Plant Cell & Physiology, 57, 1069-1084.
• Chen, J., Zhu, X., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2015). Overexpression of AtPTPA in Arabidopsis increases protein phosphatase 2A activity by promoting holoenzyme formation and ABA negatively affects holoenzyme formation. Plant Sig. Beh., e1052926. 
• Wei, J., Qiu, X., Chen, L., Hu, R., Chen, J., Sun, L., Li, L., Zhang, H., Lv, Z., and Shen, G. (2015). The E3 ligase AtCHIP positively regulates Clp proteolytic subunit homeostasis. J. Exp. Bot.  66, 5809-5820.
• Wei, J., Chen, L., Qiu, X., Hu, W., Sun, H., Chen, X., Bai, Y., Gu, X., Wang, C., Chen, H., Hu, R., Zhang, H., Shen, G. (2015). Optimizing refining temperatures to reduce the loss of essential fatty acids and bioactive compounds in tea seed oil. Food and Bioproducts Processing, 94, 136-146.
• Chen, J., Hu, R., Zhu, Y., Shen, G., Zhang, H. (2014). Arabidopsis thaliana phosphotyrosyl phosphatase activator is essential for protein phosphatase 2A holoenzyme assembly and plays important roles in hormone signaling, salt stress response, and plant development. Plant Physiol ., Vol  166, pp. 1519-1534. 
• Shen, G., Wei, J., Qiu, X., Hu, R., Kuppu, S., Auld, D., Blumwald, E., Gaxiola, R., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2015). Co-overexpression of AVP1  and  AtNHX1  in cotton further improves drought and salt tolerance in transgenic cotton plants.  Plant Mol. Biol. Rep. 33, 167-177. 
• Hu, R., Zhu, Y., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2014). TAP46 plays a positive role in the abscisic acid insensitive 5-regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol. , Vol. 164, pp.721-734.
• Kuppu, S., Mishra, Hu, R., Sun, L., Zhu, X., Shen, G., Blumwald, E., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2013). Water-deficit inducible expression of a cytokinin biosynthetic gene IPT in cotton improves drought tolerance under controlled environment growth conditions. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64190. 
• Sun, L., Hu, R., Shen, G., and Zhang, H. (2013). Genetic engineering peanut for higher drought- and salt-tolerance. Food Nutrition Sci. 4, 1-7.  
• Qin, H., Gu, Q., Kuppu, S., Sun, L., Zhu, X., Mishra, N., Hu, R., Shen, G., Zhang, J., Zhang, Y., Zhu, L., Zhang, X., Burow, M., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2013). Expression of the Arabidopsis vacuolar H+-pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 in peanut to improve drought and salt tolerance. Plant Biotech. Rep. 7, 345–355. 
• Banjara, M., Zhu, L., Shen, G., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2012). Expression of an Arabidopsis sodium/proton antiporter gene AtNHX1 in peanut to improve salt tolerance. Plant Biotech. Rep . 6, 59-67.
• Qin, H., Gu, Q., Zhang, J., Sun, L., Kuppu, S., Zhang, Y., Burow, M., Payton, P., Blumwald, E., and Zhang, H. (2011). Regulated overexpression of IPT in peanut significantly improves drought tolerance and increases yield under field conditions. Plant Cell Physiol . 52, 1904-1914. 
• Kuppu, S., Shen, G., Payton, P., and Zhang, H. (2011). Developing drought tolerant crops. In Drought: New Research . Nova Science, Hauppauge, New York.
• Zhang, H., Shen, G., Kuppu, S., Gaxiola, R., and Payton, P. (2011). Creating drought- and salt-tolerant cotton by overexpressing a vacuolar pyrophosphatase gene. Plant Sig. Beh . 6, 861-863. 
• Passapula, V., Shen, G., Kuppu, S., Paez-Valencia, J., Mendoza, M., Hou, P., Chen, J., Qiu, X., Zhu, L., Zhang, X., Auld, D., Blumwald, E., Zhang, H., Gaxiola, R., and Payton, P. (2011). Expression of an Arabidopsis vacuolar H+-pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 in cotton improves drought- and salt-tolerance and increases fiber yield in the field conditions. Plant Biotech. J . 9, 88-99. 
• Zhang, H., Li, X., Kuppu, S., and Shen, G. (2010). Is AKR2A an essential molecular chaperone for a class of membrane-bound proteins in plants? Plant Sig. Beh . 11, 1520-1522. 
• Shen, G., Kuppu, S., Venkataramani, S., Wang, J., Yan, J., Qiu, X., and Zhang, H. (2010). AKR2A is an essential molecular chaperone for peroxisomal membrane-bound ascorbate peroxidase 3 in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 22, 811-831. 
• Shen, G., Adam, Z., and Zhang, H. (2007). The E3 ligase AtCHIP ubiquitylates chloroplast protease FtsH1 and affects protein degradation in chloroplast. Plant J . , 52, 309-321. 
• Shen, G., Yan, J., Luo, J., He, C., Pasapula, V., Clarke, A.K., and Zhang, H. (2007). The chloroplast protease ClpP4 is a substrate of the E3 ligase AtCHIP and plays an important role in chloroplast function. Plant J . 49, 228-237.
• Narendra, S., Venkataramani1, S., Wang, J., Shen, G., Lin, Y., Kornyeyev, D., Holaday, S., and Zhang, H. (2006). The Arabidopsis ascorbate peroxidase 3 is a peroxisomal membrane-bound antioxidant enzyme, and is dispensable for Arabidopsis growth and development. J. Exp. Bot . 57, 3033-3042.
• Luo, J., Yan, J., Shen, G., He, C., and Zhang, H. (2006). Overexpression of AtCHIP , a gene that encodes an E3 ubiquitin ligase, increases protein phosphatase 2A activity and alters plant response to abscisic acid treatment. Plant J . 46, 649-657. 
• He, C., Shen, G., Pasapula, V., Luo, J., Venkataramani, S., Qiu, X., Kuppu, S., Kornyeyev, D., Holaday, A.S., Auld, D., Blumwald, E., and Zhang, H. (2007). Ectopic expression of AtNHX1 in cotton Gossypium Hirsutum enhances salt tolerance and improves photosynthetic performance. J. Cotton Sci . 11, 266-274.
• He, C., Yan, J., Shen, G., Fu, L., Holaday, S., Auld, D., Blumwald, E., and Zhang, H. (2005). Expression of an Arabidopsis vacuolar sodium/proton antiporter gene in cotton improves photosynthetic performance under salt conditions and increase fiber yield in the field. Plant Cell Physiol . 46, 1848-1854. 
• Yan, J., Wang, J., He, C., Holaday, A.S., Allen, R., and Zhang, H. (2004). Overexpression of the Arabidopsis 14-3-3 protein GF14 l in cotton delays leaf senescence and improves drought tolerance. Plant Cell Physiol. 45, 1007-1014.