Informal Seminar - Michelle Guo

Understanding how cellular signaling pathways achieve specificity is an important question in developmental and stress biology. FERONIA (FER) receptor kinase is universally expressed and has been established as a critical regulator in plant growth, development, stress responses and reproduction. Mechanistically, FER, together with co-receptor LLGs, perceives the RALF peptide ligands and modulates many downstream components involved in diverse biological processes. Loss-of-function fer mutant has reduced plant growth, compromised fertility and altered responses to many environmental stresses. To further understand the receptor kinase signaling specificity, we employed the primary root system in Arabidopsis. We carried out single cell transcriptomics and revealed that FER functions in a highly cell type-specific manner in the root-FER exerts unique functions in different cell types. Using cell type-specific FER knockout, we are currently dissecting the FER receptor kinase-mediated signaling specificity in both cell-autonomous and non-cell autonomous manners. The research is supported by a NIH R35 MIRA (Maximizing Investigators' Research Award).