"A self-activation loop maintains meristematic cell fate for shoot branching" - Yuling Jiao
Friday, July 26, 2019 12:20pm
About this Event
View map Free EventYuling Jiao
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Biography
Dr. Yuling Jiao earned his B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Peking University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University, where he used microarray to study gene expression in Arabidopsis and rice under the guidance of Prof. Xing-Wang Deng. He was awarded Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad and John Spangler Nicholas Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Candidate in Biology for his thesis work. As a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Prof. Elliot Meyerowitz, he developed new techniques for cell type-specific transcriptome profiling. In 2010 he became a Group Leader at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB). He switched his research interest to shoot morphogenesis. Since 2015, he has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Science. Dr. Jiao has been supported by the CAS One Hundred Talent Program, the National Program for Support of Top-Notch Young Professionals, the National High-level Personnel of Special Support Program, the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and the Newton Advanced Fellowship from the Royal Society. He received the VCANBIO Award for Innovations and Breakthroughs in Life Sciences and Medicine, and SCOPUS Young Researcher Award in Life Sciences. At IGDB, Dr. Jiao served as Vice Head of the Center for Genome Biology since 2016. He has served as the Country Representative at the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee, on the Advisory Board of Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center, and as Vice President of the Chinese Society for Plant Organogenesis.
Research Description
Yuling Jiao’s lab focuses on two related questions: (1) How do new shoot meristems initiate to enable shoot branching? (2) How does the stem cell-harboring shoot apical meristem (SAM) interplays with lateral organs derived from the SAM? Their studies involve a combination of transcriptome analysis, live-imaging, molecular genetics, large-scale functional approaches, and computational modeling. In parallel, the lab develops new methods for cell type-specific transcriptome analysis.
Axillary Meristem Initiation. In higher plants, shoot branching depends on the initiation of axillary meristems (AMs). AMs develop from stem cells in the adaxial side of the subtending leaf axil and give rise to branches. Understanding AM initiation may help in the elucidation of stem cell maintenance and differentiation, a long lasting question in biology. In addition, AM activity has long been a target of breeding selection because it significantly affects crop yield by influencing both tiller and spike number and spike branching complexity. The lab also utilizes knowledge gained from model plants to understand wheat spike branching.
Leaf flattening. The flattening of leaves to form broad blades is an important adaptation that maximizes photosynthesis. Flattening promotes leaf blade outgrowth, and depends on adaxial-abaxial patterning (also known as dorsoventral, or up-down polarity). However, the molecular mechanism underlying this process remains unclear. The lab has found that spatial auxin signaling transforms adaxial-abaxial polarity into leaf flattening, which is partially mediated by cell wall biomechanics.
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