Project properties
Title The dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton in root hairs of Arabidopsis lines that have mutations in actin organising proteins
Group Plant Cell Biology, Laboratory of
Project type thesis
Credits 18-39
Supervisor(s) Dr. Tijs Ketelaar
Examiner(s) Prof. Dr. Anne Mie Emons
Contact info tijs.ketelaar@wur.nl Phone 0317 482453
Begin date 2008/04/01
End date 2010/04/01
Description Root hairs are tip-growing cells; all their expansion takes place over the small surface area of the tip. This makes it easy to observe changes in growth direction and/or speed.
The polarised delivery of growth materials, packaged in Golgi vesicles, is dependent on the actin cytoskeleton, which is also very polarly organised and much more sensitive to disturbance than in cells that expand over a larger cell surface area. We are going to exploit this sensitivity of the root hair actin cytoskeleton by using it to study the effect of mutations in actin organising proteins.
Green Fluorescent Protein, linked to one of the actin binding domains of fimbrin (GFP:FABD) is an excellent marker of the actin cytoskeleton in live cells. We will use an Arabidopsis line, stably transformed with GFP:FABD and cross it into Arabidopsis lines with T-DNA insertions in genes that are involved in organising the actin cytoskeleton.

The aim of this project is to analyse the effect of knocking out actin organising proteins on the dynamics and organisation of the actin cytoskeleton in root hairs. This will give us both information about the effect that individual actin organising proteins have on the actin cytoskeleton and on how the polarity of the actin cytoskeleton in root hairs is generated and maintained.
Used skills Making crosses, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Live cell imaging, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy, image analysis
Requirements PCB 30306; PPH 30306 (advised, not required)