CANCELLED - Frontier Leaders
David E Salt, Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK
| When |
03 Mar, 2016
from
11:00 am to 12:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Where | Auditorium |
| Add event to your calendar |
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Cancelled
Frontier Leaders Seminar
Title: The root endodermis acts as a gateway for vascular transport
Speaker: David E Salt
Affiliation: Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Host: Cristina Silva Pereira
Abstract:
Both Casparian strips and suberin lamellae, two extracellular hydrophobic barriers located in the wall of endodermal cells of the root, play key roles in restricting the free diffusion of solutes and water into the vascular system and also their back flow out. The Casparian strip is a belt-like structure formed of lignin that surrounds endodermal cells, running parallel to the root surface. It is tightly adhered to the plasma membrane and bridges the extracellular space between adjacent cells to form a tight junction between them. On the other hand, suberin forms a waxy coatings around endodermal cells that limits transport across the plasma membrane. Cross-talk between the Casparian strip and suberin exists, with suberin being deposited in response to disruption of Casparian strips. Our understanding of the molecular machinary that builds Casparian strips, and the signalling mechanisms that mediate cross-talk between these strips and suberin deposition is still in its infancy. However, recent molecular genetic and cell biological work is starting to unravel some of these mysteries.
Professor Salt’s long term research interest is to understand the function of the genes and gene networks that regulate the plant ionome [defined as the elemental composition of an organism, tissue or cell], along with the evolutionary forces that shape this regulation. It was Professor Salt’s pioneering work (Lahner et al., 2003), along with his collaborators, that led to the new research paradigm of ionomics (reviewed in Salt et al., 2008). This ionomics approach was featured on the cover of Nature Biotechnology, was the subject of a “News and Views” in Nature Biotechnology (Rea, 2003), and was reviewed in Trends in Biotechnology, where the approach was described as “an impressive incorporation of plant genetics, analytical chemistry and statistical analysis.”
