About

Kenong Xu is an Associate Professor at the School of Integrative Plant Science, Horticulture Section, Cornell AgriTech. His research program aims to discover and characterize apple genes or gene networks that control traits of horticultural and economic importance using plant genomics tools. His work focuses on understanding the underlying mechanisms of traits such as plant growth and development, responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, and fruit shelf life and quality. Key ongoing projects include developing EST-based SSR markers, constructing genetic maps for different apple varieties, identifying genes involved in waterlogging tolerance in apple rootstocks, mapping the Co locus responsible for the columnar tree type, and investigating gene interactions related to ethylene production and fruit ripening. His outreach activities are designed to inform industry stakeholders about the benefits of plant genome research for fruit production and management.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Obstetrics
• Gynecology
• Biology
• Engineering
• Genetics
• Mechanical engineering

Selected publications

• Glycosylation gene expression profiles enable prognosis prediction for colorectal cancer

  Scientific Reports · 2025-01-04 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study developed a prognostic model for patients with colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) based on glycosylation-associated genes. By analyzing TCGA-COAD data, 110 key genes were identified, and a prognostic model incorporating five glycosylation-related genes was constructed. The model exhibits good predictive performance and is significantly associated with clinical features such as age, N stage, M stage, and lymph node count. The prognostic genes are involved in various biological processes and pathways, influence T cell differentiation, and may contribute to CRC development. High-risk patients show a higher degree of immune cell infiltration. This model aids in the early diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and treatment planning for CRC, and offers a direction for further research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dwarf tree habit is a recessive phenotype independent of the dominant columnar growth in scion apples and controlled by multiple genomic loci and their epistatic interactions

  Journal of Experimental Botany · 2025-08-13 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  The genetic control of dwarf phenotype in scion apples is largely unknown, although quantitative trait loci (QTLs) Dw1, Dw2, and Dw3 with a major dwarfing effect have been reported in apple rootstocks. To fill the knowledge gap in scion apples, we used the bulk segregant analysis (BSA)-seq approach to identify QTLs for the dwarf and (ultra-) tall phenotypes over three growth seasons in an F1 population of 365 seedlings derived from the Fuji (standard) × NYCO7-G (columnar) cross. The dwarf and tall phenotypes segregated recessively in the 140 standard progenies and in the 225 columnar progenies. Data analyses revealed five QTLs (d4-d8) for dwarf and four (t1-t4) for tall each in a 1-2 Mb region on six chromosomes. However, their main effect and epistatic interactions varied markedly depending on genetic backgrounds. The top three non-linked QTLs are d4 (Chr01_20-21 Mb), d5 (Chr08_4-5 Mb), and t1 (Chr17_1-2 Mb), and their epistatic effect explained 34.9% of phenotypic variation in the columnar background and 24.8% in the full population on average. Consequently, most seedlings with a dwarf genotype (d4d4d5d5T1T1) were dwarfs. The results demonstrated that dwarf is a recessive phenotype independent of the dominant columnar growth in scion apples and is controlled by multiple QTLs and their epistatic interactions. This study represents a step forward to enable genetic manipulation of tree height in apple scions.

  PublisherDOI

• Morin inhibits the progression of 5-fluorouracil–resistant colorectal cancer by suppressing autophagy

  The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology · 2025-04-24 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Morin induces autophagy-dependent ferroptosis in colorectal cancer cells by inhibiting the AURKB-UCHL3 interactions

  Cellular Signalling · 2025-05-17 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Ultrasound-guided left heart injection: a safer and more efficient strategyfor mouse thoracic aortic gene delivery

  Research Square · 2025-09-03

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• MhORG2, a novel negative modulator, regulates drought tolerance in apple by repressing the expression of <i>MhAAO3</i> and antioxidant enzyme genes

  Tree Physiology · 2025-11-18

  article

  Drought stress severely impacts the growth, yield and quality of apple (Malus domestica). Abscisic acid (ABA) and basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors play crucial roles in regulating the drought response in many plants, but the potential interactions between bHLH and ABA in response to drought in apple still need to be discovered. Herein, we identified a bHLH transcription factor, ORG2 (OBP3-responsive gene 2), from M. hupehensis, and the expression of which is induced by drought and ABA. Apple plants that overexpressed MhORG2 were more sensitive to drought stress, while silencing MhORG2 caused the opposite phenotype. Specifically, we found that MhORG2 could directly bind to the DRE element in the MhAAO3 promoter and repress its expression, thereby ultimately reducing drought tolerance. Furthermore, MhORG2 represses the expression of antioxidant enzyme genes (MhSOD, MhAPX1 and MhCAT), leading to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and consequently reducing the drought tolerance of apple plants. Our findings uncover a novel mechanism by which MhORG2 negatively regulates drought tolerance in apple plants, offering a potential target for the development of drought-tolerant crops via biotechnological approaches.

  PublisherDOI

• Simulated Data Enhances Three-dimensional Segmentation-based Characterization of Real Apple Trees

  2024-01-01

  article

  <b><sc>Abstract.</sc></b> Tree morphology plays an important role in both crop training system design and crop load management, which are essential to tree fruit crops such as apples. Accurate and rapid characterization of tree morphology patterns would facilitate the reach of crop ideotypes, the implementation of data-driven management such as precision pruning, and the scientific discovery of genetic mechanisms for controlling tree architecture. While 3D imaging has been intensively investigated for tree characterization in recent studies, segmentation of orchard trees into topological organs and acquiring enough annotated 3D data for network training are two main bottlenecks hindering the successive characterization processes. In this study, we propose a pipeline using simulated apple trees generated from real tree information for training a deep neural segmentation network. Subsequently, we designed 9 experiments to fine-tune the network with a different number of real trees and benchmarked the phenotyping performance on 21 real trees based on the segmentation results across several experiments to demonstrate the capabilities of introducing simulated trees as a source substitute for reliable crop tree phenotyping. Results indicated that the phenotyping performance from six-shot (Mix) segmentation results with a more balanced tree composition in the fine-tuning set are highly correlated with the ground truth, showing similar accuracy to those obtained using a substantial amount of real training data. Therefore, to optimize the use of simulated data for real-world applications of tree morphology phenotyping, it‘s critical to make the feature distribution of the simulated data used for fine-tuning as balanced as possible. This approach helps to alleviate issues like uneven feature distribution and ensures more robust and unbiased phenotyping results.

  PublisherDOI

• Alternative Splicing Underpins the ALMT9 Transporter Function for Vacuolar Malic Acid Accumulation in Apple

  Advanced Science · 2024-03-21 · 24 citations

  articleOpen access

  Vacuolar malic acid accumulation largely determines fruit acidity, a key trait for the taste and flavor of apple and other fleshy fruits. Aluminum-activated malate transporter 9 (ALMT9/Ma1) underlies a major genetic locus, Ma, for fruit acidity in apple, but how the protein transports malate across the tonoplast is unclear. Here, it is shown that overexpression of the coding sequence of Ma1 (Ma1α) drastically decreases fruit acidity in "Royal Gala" apple, leading to uncovering alternative splicing underpins Ma1's function. Alternative splicing generates two isoforms: Ma1β is 68 amino acids shorter with much lower expression than the full-length protein Ma1α. Ma1β does not transport malate itself but interacts with the functional Ma1α to form heterodimers, creating synergy with Ma1α for malate transport in a threshold manner (When Ma1β/Ma1α ≥ 1/8). Overexpression of Ma1α triggers feedback inhibition on the native Ma1 expression via transcription factor MYB73, decreasing the Ma1β level well below the threshold that leads to significant reductions in Ma1 function and malic acid accumulation in fruit. Overexpression of Ma1α and Ma1β or genomic Ma1 increases both isoforms proportionally and enhances fruit malic acid accumulation. These findings reveal an essential role of alternative splicing in ALMT9-mediated malate transport underlying apple fruit acidity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• AppleQSM: Geometry-Based 3D Characterization of Apple Tree Architecture in Orchards

  Plant Phenomics · 2024-01-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  of 0.77 and 0.69, and a MAE of 6.86 mm and 7.48° for branch diameter and angle, respectively. The accurate measurement of these architectural traits can enable precision management in high-density apple orchards and bolster phenotyping endeavors in breeding programs. Moreover, bottlenecks of 3D tree characterization in general were comprehensively analyzed to reveal future development.

  PublisherDOI

• TIME TO PREGNANCY AFTER “TRANSFER THE BEST AND BIOPSY THE REST,” REALLY A CONCERN?

  Fertility and Sterility · 2024

  • Obstetrics
  • Medicine
  • Internal medicine
  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Zev Rosenwaks

  Cornell University

  73 shared

• Lucinda L. Veeck

  Cornell University

  35 shared

• Nikica Zaninović

  25 shared

• Mohamad Irani

  University Hospital Frankfurt

  22 shared

• Ina N. Cholst

  17 shared

• David H. Abramson

  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

  16 shared

• Katherine Beaverson

  Pfizer (United States)

  16 shared

• P. Hyttel

  University of Copenhagen

  10 shared

Labs

• School of Integrative Plant Science, Horticulture Section, Cornell AgriTechPI

Awards & honors

• Presidential Early Career Awards for the accomplishment in a…
• The Whitehouse The Tech Awards-Economic Development (2012)
• The CGIAR Science Award (2007)