Specifying Vascular Pattern in Newly Emerged Roots

所有的植物和动物都是从单个细胞开始生命的。这个细胞和随后的子细胞然后分裂形成多细胞生物体。这些划分不是随机发生的。它们遵循一个精确协调的发展计划，以产生一个特定的形状或形式。单个细胞被指示承担特定的细胞身份，这些不同的细胞类型以特定的模式排列，以创造组织，器官，并最终形成整个生物体。在这个项目中，我们将研究产生位置信息的遗传机制，这些信息可以叠加在细胞模式上，特别是在新形成的根内产生的定位维管组织的信息上。这个项目将提高我们对生物体如何形成的理解，但它也将使我们对血管发育有详细的了解。植物在叶子中产生糖，并通过根部提取水和矿物质。然而，正是维管组织（木质部和韧皮部）允许这些物质在整个植物中运输。这些维管组织必须以精确的模式排列，以提供一个连接植物内部器官的连续网络，我们将揭示这种模式是如何确定的。为了做到这一点，我们将开发一系列工具，不仅有助于我们理解维管模式，还有助于我们理解根生长的许多其他方面。在这个项目中，一位生物学家和数学家将合作建立一个计算机程序，可以模拟一组基因在根生长时的行为方式。这将使我们能够快速测试当我们改变计算机程序的遗传组成时会发生什么。使用这种计算方法，我们可以快速测试许多不同的模式机制，使我们能够将耗时的实验分析集中在最重要的基因上。我们将免费提供该计划，以便其他研究人员可以调整它来研究其他类型的根或根内的其他过程。

All plants and animals start life as a single cell. This cell and the subsequent daughter cells then divide to form a multicellular organism. These divisions do not occur at random. They follow a precisely coordinated developmental programme to generate a specific shape or form. Individual cells are instructed to undertake specific cell identities and these various cell types are arranged in specific patterns to create tissues, organs and ultimately an entire organism. In this project we will investigate the genetic mechanisms that generate the positional information upon which a cellular pattern can be superimposed, and specifically on the information is generated to position vascular tissues form within newly formed roots. This project will improve our understanding about how organisms form, but it will also give us detailed insights into vascular development. Plants generate sugars in the leaves and extract water and minerals through their roots. However, it is the vascular tissues (the xylem and phloem) that allow these substances to be transported throughout the plant. These vascular tissues must be arranged in precise patterns to provide a continuous network linking organs within the plant and we will uncover how that pattern is determined.In order to do this, we will generate a series of tools that will allow not only aid our understanding of vascular patterning, but also of many other aspects of root growth. In this project a biologist and mathematician will work together to build a computer programme that can simulate the way that a group of genes behave as a root grows. This will allow us to rapidly test what happens as we change the genetic make up of our computer programme. Using this computational approach we can rapidly test many different patterning mechanisms, allowing us to focus the time consuming experimental analysis on the most important genes. We will make this programme freely available so that other researchers can adapt it to study other types of roots or other processes within the roots.