Towards a mechanistic framework of plant stem cell control (B01)

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Project B01 will decode the mechanisms underlying the precise spatio-temporal control of gene ex-pression by the stem cell inducing WUSCHEL (WUS) transcription factor in the shoot apical meristem of the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Based on our findings that stem cell function is dependent on WUS protein distribution, selective DNA binding, as well as differential response of individual cells to WUS, we will now elucidate the structural basis for the amazing ability of WUS to bind a diverse set of DNA motifs and to move from cell to cell. Complementing these mechanistic efforts, we will charac-terize the regulatory landscape encoded in trans by delineating the capacity of shoot meristem cells to respond to stem cell inductive WUS signals by single cell transcript profiling.