Cell wall research in the Ehlting lab uses functional genomics to understand how carbon flow into branch pathways of natural product metabolism is accomplished and regulated. One major carbon sink is the phenylpropanoid pathway branch leading to lignin, which makes up to a third of the dry mass of woody cell walls and is the second most abundant biopolymer on earth. Since our knowledge of the regulatory mechanisms that assure appropriate carbon allocation to lignin formation is still fragmentary, we use bioinformatics to exploit available genome sequence, transcriptome and proteome abundance data, to identify candidate genes involved in carbon partitioning and to develop testable hypotheses regarding their cellular roles. The biochemical and physiological functions of these candidate genes are now being examined through the use of molecular biology, biochemistry, and reverse genetics.