Project description:To optimize access to nitrogen under limiting conditions, root systems must continuously sense and respond to local or temporal fluctuations in nitrogen availability. In Arabidopsis thaliana and several other species, external N levels that induce only mild deficiency stimulate the emergence of lateral roots and especially the elongation of primary and lateral roots. However, the identity of the genes involved in this coordination remains still largely elusive. In order to identify novel genes and mechanisms underlying nitrogen-dependent root morphological changes, we investigated time-dependent changes in the root transcriptome of Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown under sufficient nitrogen or under conditions that induced mild nitrogen deficiency.
Project description:The organs of multicellular species are comprised of cell types that must function together to perform specific tasks. One critical organ function is responding to internal or external change but little is known about how responses are tailored to specific cell types or coordinated among them on a global level. Here we use cellular profiling of five Arabidopsis root cell types in response to a limiting resource, nitrogen, to uncover a vast and predominantly cell-specific response that was largely undetectable using traditional methods. These methods reveal a new class of cell-specific nitrogen responses. As a proof-of-principle, we dissected one cell-specific response circuit that mediates nitrogen-induced changes in root branching from pericycle cells. Thus, cellular response profiling links gene modules to discrete functions in specific cell types. Keywords: cell type comparison, comparative genomic hybridization, genetic modification
Project description:We characterised mutants in the GRAS family transcription factor AtSCL26 in Arabidopsis thaliana using a combination of gene functional analysis, hormone treatments and expression profiling at the cell type level. This has enabled us to implicate AtSCL26 in the cell-specific control of nitrogen-giberellic acid response cross-talk to control root architecture.
Project description:We performed an analysis of transcriptomic responses to auxin within four distinct tissues of the Arabidopsis thaliana root. This high-resolution dataset shows how different cell types are predisposed to react to auxin with discrete transcriptional responses. The sensitivity provided by the analysis lies in the ability to detect cell-type specific responses diluted in organ-level analyses. This dataset provides a novel resource to examine how auxin, a widespread signal in plant development, influences differentiation and patterning in the plant through tissue-specific transcriptional regulation.
Project description:We performed an analysis of transcriptomic responses to auxin within four distinct tissues of the Arabidopsis thaliana root. This high-resolution dataset shows how different cell types are predisposed to react to auxin with discrete transcriptional responses. The sensitivity provided by the analysis lies in the ability to detect cell-type specific responses diluted in organ-level analyses. This dataset provides a novel resource to examine how auxin, a widespread signal in plant development, influences differentiation and patterning in the plant through tissue-specific transcriptional regulation. To analyze the effect of auxin in separate spatial domains of the root, early transcriptional changes in response to auxin treatment were assayed by means of fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) and microarray analysis in four tissues of the Arabidopsis root (wild type Col-0). The samples covered inner and outer as well as proximal and distal cell populations; including the stele (reporter line pWOL::GFP), xylem-pole (xp) pericycle (enhancer trap line E3754), epidermis/lateral root cap (reporter line pWER::GFP) and columella (enhancer trap line PET111). One-week-old seedlings of the individual lines were treated with auxin (two hours, 5µM indole-3-acetic acid [IAA]) or mock treated, after which roots were harvested and cells were dissociated by cell wall digestion (1 hour; including 5uM IAA) . GFP-positive cells were sorted and used for microarray transcriptome analysis (as in Bargmann and Birnbaum, Plant Phys. 2010). For comparison, transcriptional responses to auxin were also assayed in intact (undigested) roots.