Group Leader: Vascular Development
CurrentEarly vascular tissue developmentPlants have the remarkable potential for indeterminate post-embryonic growth. Following their specification in the early embryo, tissue-specific precursor cells first establish tissues, and later maintain these for indeterminate, post-embryonic development. Despite their importance, mechanisms underlying tissue establishment and indeterminacy are virtually unknown. Recently, we defined local control of oriented, periclinal cell division (PCD) as the mechanism underlying both establishment and indeterminacy of the vascular tissue, one of the three major plant tissues. We identified an auxin-regulated bHLH transcription factor dimer as a critical regulator of PCD in vascular cells that is sufficient for triggering these ectopically. We showed that this dimer operates independently of tissue identity, but is restricted to a small vascular domain by integrating the overlapping transcription patterns of the interacting bHLH proteins. Our work reveals a common mechanism for tissue establishment and indeterminacy in vascular development, and provides a conceptual framework for developmental control of local cell divisions in plants. Our future work will focus on understanding how the TMO5/LHW dimer controls PCD through analysis of downstream targets. Moreover, as correct positioning of the TMO5/LHW dimer is crucial for normal vascular development, we also want to know how the exact location of the dimer is restricted.People involved:Bert De Rybel - Project LeaderBrecht Wybouw - PhD studentWouter Smet - PhD student at Wageningen UniversityNicole van’t Wout Hofland - PhD student at Wageningen UniversityKuan-Ju Lu - post doc at Wageningen UniversityJos R. Wendrich - post doc at Wageningen UniversityThis work is funded by FWO post-doc; FWO Odysseus type II (G0D0515N) and NWO VIDI (864.13.001) grants
