We proudly announce that our next RTG 2498 guest will be Dr. Marie Barberon from the Université de Genève, Switzerland. On the 26 November she will personally visit some RTG-groups and talk to the PIs and PhD-students about recent research. In the evening she will give a lecture about “Plasticity of root permeability for nutrient acquisition” as a part of the Halle Plant Science Colloquium. We’re really looking forward to meeting her.
Abstract: Plant roots forage the soil to acquire water and nutrients for growth and development. This function is closely linked to their anatomy: water and nutrients move radially through the concentric layers of epidermis, cortex, and endodermis before entering the vasculature. This arrangement allows for three uptake scenarios: the “symplastic pathway”, where the outer cells actively take up nutrients, which are then transported from cell to cell through plasmodesmata; the “apoplastic pathway”, where nutrients are transported in the apoplast and blocked by the endodermal apoplastic barrier (Casparian strips); and the “coupled trans-cellular pathway”, where nutrients are transported sequentially from one cell to another by polarized influx and efflux carriers and are barred by the endodermal diffusion barrier (suberin lamellae). My group aims to functionally characterize these pathways for nutrient acquisition by a combination of physiology, cell biology and developmental approaches. We are particularly interested in suberin lamellae and plasmodesmata function and regulations for nutrient acquisition.
