ECPD news
BarrierFates consortium receives 3M€ to dissect the role and regulation of root barriers in soil stresses
The (literally) groundbreaking research project "BarrierFates" has been awarded €3 million by NWO Open Competition XL to explore how maize roots develop and utilize three critical cortical barrier cell types—endodermis, exodermis, and multiseriate cortical sclerenchyma—to enhance stress resilience. The project aims to uncover the genetic mechanisms that regulate the formation of these specialized root cells, which play a vital role in protecting plants from environmental stresses such as drought and parasitic plants.
ECPD is strongly represented in the BarrierFates consortium. The lead PI Kaisa Kajala will investigate adaptive benefits of the root barriers in drought and compaction, and co-PI Dorota Kawa will study the role of barriers in biotic interactions, including protection against parasitic plants.
This significant funding will support cutting-edge research using advanced techniques like molecular biology, single-cell omics, and high-throughput phenomics at NPEC . The project's outcomes are expected to contribute to the development of crops with improved stress tolerance, offering sustainable solutions for agriculture in the face of climate change and resource scarcity. By deepening our understanding of root barrier formation, "BarrierFates" promises to unlock new strategies for enhancing crop performance and resilience.
Identification of cambium stem cell factors and their positioning mechanism
We are happy to announce that our study on cambium stem cell factors and positional control in collaboration with colleagues from University of Helsinki and Durham University was published in Science.
Plant growth is fuelled by stem cells. In shoots and roots, the stem cells controlling increases in length are formed during plant embryology. These stem cell niches, the genes conferring stem cell identity, and the regulatory networks controlling their positioning and size have been studied in detail. In contrast, the lateral meristems fuelling increase in tissue width called cambium are formed at a later developmental stage and are far less well understood, yet critical to pair length increase with the strength needed for stable plant growth. In the current study, we first identified the role of the Plethora genes in conferring cambium cells stem cell identity. Next, combining experiments with modelling we decipher how plants ensure a stable yet limited overlap between two signalling gradients, a PXY receptor gradient emanating from the xylem and a TDIF ligand gradient emanating from the phloem, to induce Plethora expression despite varying sizes and distances between xylem and phloem. Our study indicates a critical role for the sequestration of the diffusing ligand by the immobile receptor. As long as the phloem based ligand does not meet significant amounts of receptor it keeps efficiently diffusing, yet once it meets substantial receptor numbers it becomes immobilized by binding to the receptor preventing its further penetration towards the xylem.
While the research was done on Arabidopsis, understanding of cambium development is of great importance in forestry, where efforts are made to enhance wood formation in trees to enhance sustainable forestry and carbon sequestration.
For more information, read Study reveals how plants grow thicker, not just taller
ggPlantmap: an open-source R package for the creation of informative and quantitative ggplot maps derived from plant images
We are delighted to announce that our ggPlantmap manuscript was published in the Journal of Experimental Botany in the special issue “Methods in Plant Sciences”.
ggPlantmap is an open-source R package with the goal of facilitating the generation of informative ggplot maps from plant images to explore quantitative cell or tissue-type specific data, much like an Plant eFP viewer (https://bar.utoronto.ca/eplant/). Although widely used by the plant research community, the Plant eFP viewer lacks open and user-friendly tools for the creation of customized expression maps independently. Plant biologists with less coding experience can often encounter challenges when attempting to incorporate their own spatial quantitative data or explore specific aspects of gene expression within plant tissues. ggPlantmap can play an important role in the plant science toolbox by offering an open, accessible, and customizable solution for creating quantitative image maps from plant images. By providing researchers with the means to independently generate maps from plant images, we aim to empower plant scientists to explore the visualization and communication of plant research in creative and exciting ways. With the guide provided in the article as well as the documented guides found in the package website site (www.github.com/leonardojo/ggPlantmap), we hope to foster the independent usage of the package by the plant research community. We hope that ggPlantmap can assist the plant science community, fostering innovation and improving our understanding of plant development and function.
