PUBLICATIONS

[Patron Lab members are in bold text; *these authors contributed equally,  ^✉corresponding author(s)]

2025

Golubova D*, Salmon M*^✉, Su H*, Tansley C, Kaithakottil GG, Linsmith G, Schudoma C, Swarbreck D, O’Connell MA^✉, and Patron NJ^✉ Biosynthesis and bioactivity of anti-inflammatory triterpenoids in Calendula officinalis.  Nat Commun 16, 6941 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62269-w

Bian C*, Demirer GS*, Oz MT*, Cai Y, Witham SS, Mason GA,Di, Z, Deligne F, Zhang P , Shen R, Gaudinier A, Brady SM^✉, and Patron NJ^✉. Conservation and divergence of regulatory architecture in nitrate-responsive plant gene circuits, The Plant Cell, 2025;, koaf124, https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koaf124 

2024

Hubbard K^✉, Patron NJ, Bleau J, and Benitez-Alfonso Y. Underrepresentation of Black and Asian students in UK plant science. Nat. Plants (2024). doi: 10.1038/s41477-024-01778-w

Golubova D*, Tansley C*, Su H, and Patron NJ^✉  Emerging strategies for engineering natural product biosynthesis in Nicotiana benthamiana. Current Opinion in Plant Biology. 2024. 81;102611 doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2024.102611

Tansley C, Patron NJ, and Guiziou S^✉. Engineering plant cell fates and functions for agriculture and industry. ACS Synthetic Biology. 2024. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.4c00047

Juteršek M*, Gerasymenko IM*, Petek M, Haumann E, Vacas S, Kallam K, Gianoglio S,  Navarro-Llopis V, Navarro Fuertes I, Patron NJ, Orzáez D, Gruden K, Warzecha H,  Baebler Š^✉. Transcriptome-informed identification and characterisation of Planococcus citri cis– and trans-isoprenyl diphosphate synthase genes. iScience. 2024 109441 doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109441 

2023

Kallam K*, Moreno-Giménez E*, Mateos-Fernández R, Tansley C, Gianoglio S, Orzaez D, Patron NJ^✉. Tunable control of insect pheromone biosynthesis in Nicotiana benthamiana. Plant Biotechnol J. 2023 Jul;21(7):1440-1453. doi: 10.1111/pbi.14048 PMID: 37032497

Patron NJ^✉ , Burgess SJ^✉ . Editorial Overview: Engineering plants and plant products for a green bioeconomy. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2023 Feb;71:102346. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102346 PMID: 36774012

2022

Tomaž Š, Petek M, Lukan T, Pogačar K, Stare K, Teixeira Prates E, Jacobson DA, Zrimec J, Bajc G, Butala M, Pompe Novak M, Dudley QM, Patron N, Taler-Verčič A, Usenik A, Turk D, Prat S, Coll A, Gruden K^✉. A mini-TGA protein modulates gene expression through heterogeneous association with transcription factors. Plant Physiol. 2022 Dec 15:kiac579. doi: 10.1093/plphys/kiac579 PMID: 36517238 

Dudley QM, Jo S, Guerrero DAS, Chhetry M, Smedley MA, Harwood WA, Sherden NH, O’Connor SE, Caputi L, Patron NJ^✉ . Reconstitution of monoterpene indole alkaloid biosynthesis in genome-engineered Nicotiana benthamiana. Commun Biol. 2022 Sep 10;5(1):949. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-03904-w  PMID: 36088516 

Dudley QM, Raitskin O, Patron NJ^✉. Cas9-Mediated Targeted Mutagenesis in Plants. Methods Mol Biol. 2022;2379:1-26. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1791-5_1 PMID: 35188653

Mateos Fernández R, Petek M, Gerasymenko I, Juteršek M, Baebler Š, Kallam K, Moreno Giménez E, Gondolf J, Nordmann A, Gruden K, Orzaez D, Patron NJ^✉. Insect pest management in the age of synthetic biology. Plant Biotechnol J. 2022 Jan;20(1):25-36. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13685 PMID: 34416790

2021

Dudley QM, Cai YM, Kallam K, Debreyne H, Carrasco Lopez JA, Patron NJ^✉. Biofoundry-assisted expression and characterization of plant proteins. Synth Biol. 2021 Sep 11;6(1):ysab029. doi: 10.1093/synbio/ysab029 PMID: 34693026  

Moffat AD, Elliston A, Patron NJ, Truman AW, Carrasco Lopez JA^✉. A biofoundry workflow for the identification of genetic determinants of microbial growth inhibition. Synth Biol 2021 Jan 28;6(1):ysab004. doi: 10.1093/synbio/ysab004  PMID: 33623825.

Cai YM, Dudley QM, Patron NJ^✉. Measurement of Transgene Copy Number in Plants Using Droplet Digital PCR. Bio Protoc. 2021 Jul 5;11(13):e4075. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.4075 PMID: 34327272

EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Naegeli H, Bresson JL, Dalmay T, Dewhurst IC, Epstein MM, Firbank LG, Guerche P, Hejatko J, Moreno FJ, Nogue F, Rostoks N, Sanchez Serrano JJ, Savoini G, Veromann E, Veronesi F, Casacuberta J, De Schrijver A, Messean A, Patron N, Zurbriggen M, Alvarez F, Devos Y, Gennaro A, Streissl F, Papadopoulou N, Mullins E. Evaluation of existing guidelines for their adequacy for the molecular characterisation and environmental risk assessment of genetically modified plants obtained through synthetic biology. EFSA J. 2021 Feb 5;19(2):e06301. doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6301  PMID: 33598046.

Kemp L^✉, Aldridge DC, Booy O, Bower H, Browne D, Burgmann M, Burt A, Cunningham AA, Dando M, Dick JTA, Dye C, Weiss Evans S, Gallardo B, Godfray HCJ, Goodfellow I, Gubbins S, Holt LA, Jones KE, Kandil H, Martin P, McCaughan M, McLeish C, Meany T, Millett K, ÓhÉigeartaigh SS, Patron NJ, Rhodes C, Roy HE, Shackelford G, Smith D, Spence N, Steiner H, Sundaram LS, Voeneky S, Walker JR, Watkins H, Whitby S, Wood J, Sutherland WJ. 80 questions for UK biological security. PLoS One. 2021 Jan 6;16(1):e0241190. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241190 PMID: 33406134

2020

Cai YM, Kallam K, Tidd H, Gendarini G, Salzman A, Patron NJ^✉. Rational design of minimal synthetic promoters for plants. Nucleic Acids Res. 2020 Dec 2;48(21):11845-11856. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkaa682 PMID: 32856047

Cai YM, Carrasco Lopez JA, Patron NJ^✉. Phytobricks: Manual and Automated Assembly of Constructs for Engineering Plants. Methods Mol Biol. 2020;2205:179-199. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-0908-8_11  PMID: 32809200

Hatta MAM, Arora S, Ghosh S, Matny O, Smedley MA, Yu G, Chakraborty S, Bhatt D, Xia X, Steuernagel B, Richardson T, Mago R, Lagudah ES, Patron NJ, Ayliffe M, Rouse MN, Harwood WA, Periyannan S, Steffenson BJ, Wulff BBH^✉. The wheat Sr22, Sr33, Sr35 and Sr45 genes confer resistance against stem rust in barley. Plant Biotechnol J. 2021 Feb;19(2):273-284. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13460 PMID: 32744350

Khumsupan P, Kozlowska MA, Orr DJ, Andreou AI, Nakayama N, Patron N, Carmo-Silva E, McCormick AJ^✉. Generating and characterizing single- and multigene mutants of the Rubisco small subunit family in Arabidopsis. J Exp Bot. 2020 Oct 7;71(19):5963-5975. doi: 10.1093/jxb/eraa316 PMID: 32734287

Kemp L^✉, Adam L, Boehm CR, Breitling R, Casagrande R, Dando M, Djikeng A, Evans NG, Hammond R, Hills K, Holt LA, Kuiken T, Markotić A, Millett P, Napier JA, Nelson C, ÓhÉigeartaigh SS, Osbourn A, Palmer M, Patron NJ, Perello E, Piyawattanametha W, Restrepo-Schild V, Rios-Rojas C, Rhodes C, Roessing A, Scott D, Shapira P, Simuntala C, Smith RD, Sundaram LS, Takano E, Uttmark G, Wintle B, Zahra NB, Sutherland WJ. Bioengineering horizon scan 2020. Elife. 2020 May 29;9:e54489. doi: 10.7554/eLife.54489 PMID: 32479263

Patron NJ^✉. Beyond natural: synthetic expansions of botanical form and function. New Phytol. 2020 Jul;227(2):295-310. doi: 10.1111/nph.16562 PMID: 32239523

Sauret-Güeto S, Frangedakis E, Silvestri L, Rebmann M, Tomaselli M, Markel K, Delmans M, West A, Patron NJ, Haseloff J^✉. Systematic Tools for Reprogramming Plant Gene Expression in a Simple Model, Marchantia polymorpha. ACS Synth Biol. 2020 Apr 17;9(4):864-882. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.9b00511 Epub 2020 Apr 2. PMID: 32163700

2019

Hillson N^✉, Caddick M, Cai Y, Carrasco JA, Chang MW, Curach NC, Bell DJ, Le Feuvre R, Friedman DC, Fu X, Gold ND, Herrgård MJ, Holowko MB, Johnson JR, Johnson RA, Keasling JD, Kitney RI, Kondo A, Liu C, Martin VJJ, Menolascina F, Ogino C, Patron NJ, Pavan M, Poh CL, Pretorius IS, Rosser SJ, Scrutton NS, Storch M, Tekotte H, Travnik E, Vickers CE, Yew WS, Yuan Y, Zhao H, Freemont PS*. Building a global alliance of biofoundries. Nat Commun. 2019 May 9;10(1):2040. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-10079-2   PMID: 31068573

Tuncel A, Corbin KR, Ahn-Jarvis J, Harris S, Hawkins E, Smedley MA, Harwood W, Warren FJ, Patron NJ^✉, Smith AM^✉. Cas9-mediated mutagenesis of potato starch-branching enzymes generates a range of tuber starch phenotypes. Plant Biotechnol J. 2019 Dec;17(12):2259-2271. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13137 PMID: 31033104

Stephenson MJ, Reed J, Patron NJ, Lomonossoff G, Osbourn A^✉ (2019) Engineering tobacco for plant natural product production. Comprehensive Natural Products III (Third Edition) Chemistry and Biology 6:244-262

Kuhaudomlarp S, Pergolizzi G, Patron NJ, Henrissat B, Field RA^✉. Unraveling the subtleties of β-(1→3)-glucan phosphorylase specificity in the GH94, GH149, and GH161 glycoside hydrolase families. J Biol Chem. 2019 Apr 19;294(16):6483-6493. doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA119.007712 PMID: 30819804

Bickerton P^✉, Patron NJ (2019) An edit for good? Lab News

Raitskin O, Schudoma C, West A, Patron NJ^✉. Comparison of efficiency and specificity of CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases in plants: An expanded toolkit for precision genome engineering. PLoS One. 2019 Feb 27;14(2):e0211598. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211598 PMID: 30811422

Pollak B, Cerda A, Delmans M, Álamos S, Moyano T, West A, Gutiérrez RA, Patron NJ, Federici F, Haseloff J^✉. Loop assembly: a simple and open system for recursive fabrication of DNA circuits. New Phytol. 2019 Apr;222(1):628-640. doi: 10.1111/nph.15625 PMID: 30521109

2018

Kahl L^✉, Molloy J, Patron N, Matthewman C, Haseloff J, Grewal D, Johnson R, Endy D^✉. Opening options for material transfer. Nat Biotechnol. 2018 Oct 11;36(10):923-927 doi: 10.1038/nbt.4263. PMID: 30307930

Stewart CN Jr^✉, Patron N, Hanson AD, Jez JM. Plant metabolic engineering in the synthetic biology era: plant chassis selection. Plant Cell Rep. 2018 Oct;37(10):1357-1358 doi: 10.1007/s00299-018-2342-1. PMID: 30196331

Ran Y, Patron N, Kay P, Wong D, Buchanan M, Cao YY, Sawbridge T, Davies JP, Mason J, Webb SR, Spangenberg G, Ainley WM, Walsh TA, Hayden MJ^✉. Zinc finger nuclease-mediated precision genome editing of an endogenous gene in hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) using a DNA repair template. Plant Biotechnol J. 2018 Dec;16(12):2088-2101 doi: 10.1111/pbi.12941. PMID: 29734518

Halewood M^✉, Chiurugwi T, Sackville Hamilton R, Kurtz B, Marden E, Welch E, Michiels F, Mozafari J, Sabran M, Patron N, Kersey P, Bastow R, Dorius S, Dias S, McCouch S, Powell W. Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture: opportunities and challenges emerging from the science and information technology revolution. New Phytol. 2018 Mar;217(4):1407-1419. doi: 10.1111/nph.14993 PMID: 29359808

Vazquez-Vilar M, Orzaez D, Patron N^✉. DNA assembly standards: Setting the low-level programming code for plant biotechnology. Plant Sci. 2018 Aug;273:33-41 doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2018.02.024 PMID: 29907307

Kuhaudomlarp S, Patron NJ, Henrissat B, Rejzek M, Saalbach G, Field RA^✉. Identification of Euglena gracilis β-1,3-glucan phosphorylase and establishment of a new glycoside hydrolase (GH) family GH149. J Biol Chem. 2018 Feb 23;293(8):2865-2876. doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA117.000936 PMID: 29317507

2017

Volpi e Silva N and Patron NJ^✉(2017) CRISPR-based tools for plant genome engineering. Emerging Topics in Life Sciences 1: 135–149

Owen C, Patron NJ, Huang A, Osbourn A^✉. Harnessing plant metabolic diversity. Curr Opin Chem Biol. 2017 Oct;40:24-30. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2017.04.015  PMID: 28527344

Patron NJ^✉ (2017) Feeding the Future: The Case for Open Source Technology and an Inclusive Plant Bioengineering Community. SynBioLEAP

Wintle BC^✉, Boehm CR, Rhodes C, Molloy JC, Millett P, Adam L, Breitling R, Carlson R, Casagrande R, Dando M, Doubleday R, Drexler E, Edwards B, Ellis T, Evans NG, Hammond R, Haseloff J, Kahl L, Kuiken T, Lichman BR, Matthewman CA, Napier JA, ÓhÉigeartaigh SS, Patron NJ, Perello E, Shapira P, Tait J, Takano E, Sutherland WJ. A transatlantic perspective on 20 emerging issues in biological engineering. Elife. 2017 Nov 14;6:e30247. doi: 10.7554/eLife.30247 PMID: 29132504

D’Amore R, Johnson J, Haldenby S, Hall N, Hughes M, Joynson R, Kenny JG, Patron N, Hertz-Fowler C, Hall A^✉. SMRT Gate: A method for validation of synthetic constructs on Pacific Biosciences sequencing platforms. Biotechniques. 2017 Jul 1;63(1):13-20. doi: 10.2144/000114565 PMID: 28701143

Boehm CR, Pollak B, Purswani N, Patron N, Haseloff J^✉. Synthetic Botany. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2017 Jul 5;9(7):a023887. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a023887 PMID: 28246181

2016

Richardson S and Patron NJ^✉ (2016) Playing God in a sandbox. Microbiology.

Patron NJ^✉ (2016) Synthetic Plants in Synthetic Biology Handbook Ed: Darren Nesbeth. CRC Press. ISBN 978146656847.

Patron NJ^✉(2016) Synthetic Biology and Gene Cloning In Encyclopedia of Applied Plant Sciences 2nd Edition. Editors-in-Chief: Brian Thomas, Denis J Murphy, Brian G Murray. Academic Press. eBook ISBN: 9780123948083 Hardcover ISBN: 9780123948076

Raitskin O, Patron NJ^✉. Multi-gene engineering in plants with RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2016 Feb;37:69-75. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2015.11.008 PMID: 26707469

2015

Patron NJ^✉. Blueprints for green biotech: development and application of standards for plant synthetic biology. Biochem Soc Trans. 2016 Jun 15;44(3):702-8. doi: 10.1042/BST20160044. PMID: 27284031

Patron NJ^✉. DNA Assembly for Plant Biology. Curr Protoc Plant Biol. 2016 Dec;1(4):604-616. doi: 10.1002/cppb.20038. PMID: 31725968

Patron NJ^✉, Orzaez D, Marillonnet S, Warzecha H, Matthewman C, Youles M, Raitskin O, Leveau A, Farré G, Rogers C, Smith A, Hibberd J, Webb AA, Locke J, Schornack S, Ajioka J, Baulcombe DC, Zipfel C, Kamoun S, Jones JD, Kuhn H, Robatzek S, Van Esse HP, Sanders D, Oldroyd G, Martin C, Field R, O’Connor S, Fox S, Wulff B, Miller B, Breakspear A, Radhakrishnan G, Delaux PM, Loqué D, Granell A, Tissier A, Shih P, Brutnell TP, Quick WP, Rischer H, Fraser PD, Aharoni A, Raines C, South PF, Ané JM, Hamberger BR, Langdale J, Stougaard J, Bouwmeester H, Udvardi M, Murray JA, Ntoukakis V, Schäfer P, Denby K, Edwards KJ, Osbourn A, Haseloff J. Standards for plant synthetic biology: a common syntax for exchange of DNA parts. New Phytol. 2015 Oct;208(1):13-9. doi: 10.1111/nph.13532 PMID: 26171760

Parry G^✉, Patron N, Bastow R, Matthewman C. Meeting report: GARNet/OpenPlant CRISPR-Cas workshop. Plant Methods. 2015 Jan 27;12:6. doi: 10.1186/s13007-016-0104-z. PMID: 26823675

Belhaj K, Chaparro-Garcia A, Kamoun S, Patron NJ, Nekrasov V^✉. Editing plant genomes with CRISPR/Cas9. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2015 Apr;32:76-84. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2014.11.007 PMID: 25437637

Lawrenson T, Shorinola O, Stacey N, Li C, Østergaard L, Patron N, Uauy C, Harwood W^✉. Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease. Genome Biol. 2015 Nov 30;16:258. doi: 10.1186/s13059-015-0826-7 PMID: 26616834

2014

Patron NJ^✉. DNA assembly for plant biology: techniques and tools. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2014 Jun;19:14-9. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2014.02.004 PMID: 24632010

Engler C, Youles M, Gruetzner R, Ehnert TM, Werner S, Jones JD, Patron NJ^✉, Marillonnet S^✉. A Golden Gate modular cloning toolbox for plants. ACS Synth Biol. 2014 Nov 21;3(11):839-43. doi: 10.1021/sb4001504  PMID: 24933124

Please see GoogleScholar for a full list of Nicola’s Publications.