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SUMMARY:Understanding plant root developmental plasticity using cell type-
 specific genomics - Miriam Gifford\, School of Life Sciences\, University 
 of Warwick
DTSTART:20150507T120000Z
DTEND:20150507T130000Z
UID:TALK58903@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:38889
DESCRIPTION:Multicellular organisms are comprised of many cell types with 
 distinct identities and functions. Furthermore\, the scale or plasticity o
 f potential responses within cell types also differs dramatically. Our pre
 vious work has shown that regulation of developmental plasticity is geneti
 cally encoded\, and that perturbing ‘plasticity’ genes alters the exte
 nt of highly specific root architecture responses to the environment. We a
 re interested in quantifying the level of plasticity in cell types in orde
 r to uncover the mechanisms underlying whole organism plasticity. \n\nForm
 ation of nodules as a result of cell division specifically in the legume r
 oot cortical cell layer is a developmental mechanism with intriguing paral
 lels to lateral root development from pericycle. It follows that environme
 ntal conditions that control formation of these structures should be sense
 d in a highly cell specific fashion. To detect cell specific changes respo
 nses during nodulation and nitrogen influx we use Fluorescence Activated C
 ell Sorting (FACS) followed by transcriptomics and network inference. This
  allows us to carry out comparative expression multi-point timecourse prof
 iling between the legume Medicago truncatula and the non-legume Arabidopsi
 s thaliana. It is possible that the genes enabling nodulation already exis
 t in non-legumes\, but are not expressed in the appropriate cell types. Re
 engineering plants to express symbiosis genes under a synthetic set of cel
 l-specific promoters could extend the developmental plasticity of cell typ
 es and enable nodulation in non-legume crops.\n
LOCATION:Sainsbury Laboratory
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