Elucidating Context-Specific Receptor Kinase Signaling
Plant Biology Seminar Series

Abstract:
Understanding how cellular signaling pathways achieve specificity is an important question in developmental and stress biology. FERONIA (FER) receptor kinase is universally expressed and has been established as a critical regulator in plant growth, development, stress responses and reproduction. Mechanistically, FER, together with co-receptor LLGs, perceives the RALF peptide ligands and modulates many downstream components involved in diverse biological processes. Cell wall component pectin and cell wall protein LRXs also play important roles in the RALF ligands perception. Loss-of-function fer mutant has reduced plant growth, compromised fertility and altered responses to many environmental stresses. To further understand the receptor kinase signaling specificity, we employed the primary root system in Arabidopsis. We carried out single cell transcriptomics and revealed that FER functions in a highly cell type-specific manner in the root-FER exerts unique functions in different cell types. Using cell type-specific FER knockout, we are currently dissecting the FER receptor kinase-mediated signaling specificity in both cell-autonomous and non-cell autonomous manners. The research is supported by an NIH R35.

About the Speaker:
Michelle (Hongqing) Guo is an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology (GDCB) at Iowa State University. She received her BS in Biology and her MS in Plant Biology from Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, and PhD in the Interdepartmental Genetics and Genomics from Iowa State University. Her research interest is to understand how receptor kinases function to balance plant growth and environmental stresses, using molecular genetics, functional genomics and single cell transcriptomics in the model system Arabidopsis thaliana.

Contact

  Charlie Anderson
  cta3@psu.edu