Defining pathways that establish and maintain reproductive cell identity in plant ovules and seeds

与动物不同，植物中的个体体细胞有非凡的能力再生成新的植物，这取决于它们感知的信号。当成熟细胞在多细胞环境中采用新的身份时，这种发育可塑性在正常的植物生长过程中尤其重要。组织的复杂性对于植物在社会中作为食物、燃料和纤维的利用至关重要，但植物细胞如何以及为什么采用或改变身份一直难以确定。该项目旨在使用下一代分子方法来确定驱动特定胚珠和种子细胞类型分化的途径，这些途径直接影响作物质量、产量和最终用途。

Unlike animals, individual somatic cells in plants have the remarkable ability to regenerate into new plants, depending on the signals they perceive. This developmental plasticity is particularly important during normal plant growth, when mature cells adopt new identities within multicellular environments. Tissue complexity is critical for the utilisation of plants in society as food, fuel and fibre, but how and why plant cells adopt or change identity has been difficult to determine. This project aims to employ next-generation molecular methods to identify pathways driving differentiation of specific ovule and seed cell-types, which directly impact crop quality, yield and end-use.