Study of molecular mechanism of asymmetry in plant stem cells

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Asymmetric cell division is important for multicellular organisms to control their developmental program. Molecular mechanisms of asymmetric cell division are still largely unknown in plants. The moss, Physcomitrella patens provides a good system for studying the mode of cell division since the whole processes are easily observable at a single cell level.We identified ten of the fluorescent protein-tagged proteins were segregated asymmetrically during cell division, and found distinct types of uneven segregation are underlying during asymmetric cell division. We also found that either under a stress condition or upon abscisic acid treatment, the apical cell changed a cell division mode from asymmetry to symmetry. Then in order to understand a molecular mechanism for how the mode of cell division can be switched, we identified several genes, and further studied their function.