Polar expeditions across kingdoms

Date

Sep 21, 2023

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Dolf Weijers

Affiliation

Laboratory of Biochemistry, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Series

MPI-CBG Thursday Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Jesse Veenvliet

Description

Cells in multicellular organisms are generally organized along the organisms’ axes to ensure coordinated cell division orientation, shape and differentiation. Central to this process is the establishment of cellular polarity, through local cortical accumulation of polarity proteins. While in animals and fungi, cell polarity mechanisms are relatively well-understood, it is largely unknown how cells are polarized in the plant kingdom. By studying the early plant embryo, our team identified a family of novel SOSEKI polarity proteins, deeply conserved among plants, and sharing functional domains with animal Wnt/polarity proteins. Characterization of these proteins revealed that regulated protein oligomerization and polymerization is a key principle that organizes cell polarity across kingdoms. In this seminar, I will focus on what we can learn about general organizing principles in cell polarity from comparative, structural, proteomic and functional analysis of this novel family of polarity proteins. I will address mechanisms underlying regulated polymerization, polar membrane targeting, and the control of polarity and development by mechanical signals.

Last modified: Sep 22, 2023, 7:37:38 AM