DynaMo Mini Symposium: Yka Helariutta and Sarah O'Connor

DynaMo Center is pleased to host a Mini Symposium with our two distinguished guests on Friday 15 January 2016

Yka Helariutta
Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University & University of Helsinki

Sarah O'Connor
John Innes Centre

Ykä Helariutta:

The role of symplastic communication during root vascular development
Vascular plants have a long-distance transport system consisting of two tissue types, phloem and xylem. Phloem is adapted for transporting organic molecules from the source to sink tissues. It consists of the transporting sieve elements (SE) and companion cells (CC) that support these highly specialized enucleate cells with various characteristic subcellular adaptation including some distinctive cell wall properties. During root primary development, phloem identity is established through a set of asymmetric cell divisions that will also give rise to part of the pluripotent procambial tissue that will develop as vascular cambium later during secondary development. We
have analyzed phloem development based on genetic and molecular approaches and identified a set of key regulators, such as transcription factors that are controlling phloem identity (APL, Bonke et al 2003 Nature) and phloem differentiation (NAC 45/81 Furuta et al 2014 Science). Finally, through identification of dominant mutations affecting callose biosynthesis, we have engineered a temporally and spatially controlled system to control plasmodesmatal trafficking during phloem development (Vaten et al. 2011 Developmental Cell; Bishopp et al. 2011 Curr Biol).

Sarah O'Connor:

Understanding and engineering alkaloid biosynthesis
The organization of natural product pathways in plants pose many exciting research challenges that have only begun to be addressed. The O’Connor group has made inroads into the mechanistic study of some of the biochemical transformations observed in plant alkaloid biosynthesis, and, in parallel with these efforts, her group has also engineered the substrate specificity of alkaloid biosynthesis enzymes and implemented these enzymes in metabolic engineering efforts. This has led to the successful use of plant tissue for the production of “new-to-nature” compounds. Finally, her group’s research has also begun to address the challenging problem of elucidating the uncharacterized genes of plant metabolic pathways.

Everybody is welcome!