Probing the self-organization of plant cells by micropattern and microfluidics

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Michael Nick
• Subject Area: Plant Cell and Developmental Biology
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 193867347

How individual cells are coordinated into an entity, is a basic question of the development. The spatiotemporal distribution of specific biomolecules at the cellular and subcellular level plays an important role in this process. Plants lack the separation of immortal germ cells from mortal soma cells and therefore all plant cells are basically totipotent. The transition into the stem cell status is regulated by the plant hormone auxin that plays a central role as coordinating signal in this context. Auxin is transported directionally, a process that is related to cytoskeleton-dependent vesicle traffic. This polar auxin transport defines, what is "top" and "bottom" in a plant and how a pattern is established. In those cells development is controlled by an innate directionality of individual cells, they provide a good model to test the impact of signal gradients for cellular self-organization. This requires functional tests that are more stringent than mere genetic manipulation of overall protein activities. We will apply different geometries of individual containers to generate cells with specific shape, such that we can control the development of cell axis and polarity. Using microfluidics in combination with newly developed caged auxins and caged auxin transport inhibitors that can be locally released by a laser beam, we will generate gradients of auxin to control the local concentration of this signal and change the direction of transport. By these approaches we will be able to manipulate the spatial and temporal pattern of protein activity at cellular and subcellular levels which allows a functional dissection of cellular self-organization.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Xingyu Jiang