Project properties
Title SCHIZORIZA: tissues with multiple personalities
Group Molecular Biology, Laboratory of
Project type thesis
Credits 18-39
Supervisor(s) Renze Heidstra
Examiner(s) Dr R Heidstra (PDB/MOB)
Contact info renze.heidstra@wur.nl
Begin date 2014/11/01
End date 2024/10/01
Description Asymmetric cell division is a fundamental and universal mechanism for generating diversity and pattern in multicellular organisms. SCHIZORIZA (SCZ), a transcriptional co-factor controls the separation of cell fate in a set of stem cells generating different Arabidopsis root tissues: root cap, epidermis, cortex, and endodermis. Loss-of-function, expression, and reconstitution experiments indicate that SCZ acts mainly from within its cortical expression domain in the stem cell niche, exerting both autonomous and non-autonomous effects to specify cortex identity and control the separation of cell fates in surrounding layers.
The SCZ protein contains a DNA binding site but lack an transcriptional activation sequence whereas it does contain putative transcriptional repressor domains. Thus we want to determine to which proteins the SCZ can bind to form a transcriptional activator or repressive complex and what role these proteins play in plant development in general. In addition, we perform transcriptomics and DNA binding experiments to determine downstream target genes and determine their role in tissue specification.
Used skills Standard recombinant DNA technology such as DNA isolation, cloning and PCR.
Handling of various model organisms like E.coli, Agrobacterium, yeast, Arabidopsis.
Yeast-2-Hybrid screening for SCZ interactors and confirm interactions in yeast.
BiFC (split-YFP) to test complex formation in planta using confocal laser microscopy
Transient and stable plant transformation to investigated identified genes by way of promoter-reporter assays in planta.
Gene knock-out analysis, genotyping and phenotyping using microscopy and gene expression analysis.
Requirements For BSc thesis: MOB20306
For MSc thesis: MOB20306 and and MOB30306 or MOB31303 or MOB30806 or PHP30806 or equivalent