Arabidopsis TSO1 in Transcription and Chromatin Function

在植物和动物的胚胎和胚胎后发育过程中，细胞增殖和细胞分化必须协调一致，才能达到最终的器官大小、形状和功能。似乎植物和动物利用不同的策略来实现这种协调的细胞生长。植物细胞特别灵活，因为它们可以很容易地在培养基中培养并再生成全新的植物。有人提出，某些在植物中功能不同的协调基因可能是植物细胞这种独特属性的基础。先前对拟南芥突变体Tso1的遗传分析表明，突变体花的细胞分化失败，这表明TSO1基因可能编码这样一个重要的协调基因。拟南芥TSO1蛋白与果蝇Mip120蛋白的序列相似性表明，TSO1可能是染色质复合体的重要组成部分。这个为期一年的试点项目旨在建立几种必要的工具和试剂来表征TSO1，并检验TSO1是一种新的植物染色质复合体的成分的假设。这些研究可能有助于揭示植物细胞在组织和整个植物再生中的独特性质。由于拟南芥与其他植物之间遗传机制的保守性，这项工作也将推进在重要农作物上的研究和应用。该项目将涉及并培训博士生、本科生和博士后研究员。将努力从马里兰大学和附近大学的代表团体中招收学生。

During the embryonic and postembryonic development of plants and animals, cell proliferation and cell differentiation must be coordinated to achieve final organ size, shape and function. It appears that plants and animals utilize distinct strategies to achieve this coordinated cell growth. Plant cells are particularly flexible in that they can be easily cultured in medium and regenerated into an entirely new plant. It was proposed that certain coordination genes, which function differently in plants, might underlie this distinct property of plant cells. Previous genetic analyses of an Arabidopsis thaliana mutant tso1 showed a failure of cell differentiation in the mutant flowers, suggesting that the TSO1 gene might encode such an important coordinator gene. The sequence similarity between the Arabidopsis TSO1 protein and the Drosophila Mip120 protein suggested that TSO1 might function as a crucial component of a chromatin complex. This oneyear pilot project is aimed at establishing several essential tools and reagents necessary for the characterization of TSO1 and testing the hypothesis that TSO1 is a component of a novel plant chromatin complex. These studies may shed light on the unique properties of plant cells in tissue and whole plant regeneration. Due to the conservation of genetic mechanisms between Arabidopsis and other plants, the work will also advance research and application in important crop plants. The project will involve and train Ph.D. students, undergraduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. Efforts will be placed on recruiting students from under representative groups at the University of Maryland and nearby universities.