セミナー情報

Plants show remarkable developmental plasticity and regeneration capacity. Root branching is crucial for plants’ growth and adaptation to the environment. The lateral roots of seed plants initiate from the pericycle cells. After leaving root apical meristem, pericycle cells maintain their cell-division　potential which enables plants to form lateral roots flexibly depending on environments. On the other hand, plants often endure wounding and cell death caused by environmental stresses. Therefore, timely replenishment of dead cells is crucial for plant survival. Under DNA stress, stem cells actively die to maintain genome stability in descendant cells. When released from DNA stress, cells neighboring the dead stem cells undergo replenishing divisions to restore the stem cell niche. In this talk, I will present a transcriptional regulatory network that governs the competence of pericycle cells to initiate lateral root. I will also introduce a brassinosteroid receptor BRL3-mediated signaling pathway that activates the replenishing cell division after DNA damage-induced stem cell death. I shall discuss the perspectives on future research and how these regulatory mechanisms are applied to developmental and regeneration programs in general.