Professor Juan Dong

Plant Biology

Waksman Institute of Microbioloby

RUTGERS

Title: Precisions in time and space: signaling control in stomatal development

Host: Professor Dabing Zhang

Time: 2022-08-31, 9:30 AM (Beijing zone)

Tencent link

https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/ZzNqWNYcWZ67

Meeting ID: 651 747 382

Password: 335159

Research:

Cell Polarity and Asymmetric Division in Plants

Polarity is a fundamental feature of cells and can manifest itself both in overall morphology and in the unequal distribution of molecular components. Cell polarity, in both animals and plants, is of paramount importance for many developmental and physiological processes. The establishment and maintenance of cell polarity are required for asymmetric cell division (ACD), an indispensable mechanism for multi-cellular organisms to generate cellular diversity by producing daughter cells with distinctive identities from a single mother cell. Extensive studies in animal systems have revealed a set of conserved proteins that link cell polarization to asymmetric division control. Plant genomes do not seem to encode these “polarity” proteins and the molecular components and mechanical basis for plant asymmetric division has been an enigma for decades. Studies on the novel plant protein BASL (Breaking of Asymmetry in the Stomatal Lineage) provided strong evidence that plant cells also have the capability to polarize non-transmembrane proteins and utilize polarized protein distribution to regulate asymmetric cell division.