Due to the presence of a cell wall which surrounds and glues plant cells together, plants rely strongly on the interplay between oriented cell divisions and elongation to establish their overall body plan. Next to proliferative (symmetric) divisions, plants utilize formative (asymmetric) divisions to establish new organs. In the majority of higher plant cells, both proliferative and formative division planes are determined by the formation of a plant-specific cytoskeletal structure termed the preprophase band (PPB). This structure encircles the premitotic nucleus and determines the future division plane long before the cell actually divides. The PPB is however only a transient structure as it disappears prior to nuclear envelope breakdown and its exact function in establishing the future division plane remains still not fully understood.
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From Excellence in Plant Sciences to Value for Society
From Excellence in Plant Sciences to Value for Society
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Advanced Live Cell Imaging
Aurora Kinases in Arabidopsis and Physcomitrella
Plant Aurora kinases are divided in two families, the Alpha and Beta type Auroras (Demidov et al., 2005). Whereas the Beta type Aurora of Arabidopsis localizes to centromeric regions, both Alpha type Auroras associate with the prophase spindle, kinetochore fibers during metaphase and anaphase and accumulate at the forming cell plate during cytokinesis, both in tobacco BY-2 cells as in Arabidopsis root cells.
Towards Mechanistic insight into the TPLATE adaptor Complex in plant Endocytosis
Endocytosis controls cellular perception of the outside world but how this is regulated in plants remains largely unknown. Moreover, recent evidence shows that plants, in contrast to other Kingdoms, have retained an evolutionary ancient mechanism that controls this process. Gaining mechanistic insight into endocytosis in plants is an essential step towards being able to modulate plant signaling pathways and towards understanding the evolution of eukaryotic membrane trafficking mechanisms.
Confocal Movies
Selection of confocal movies from previous and current research projects.
Selected Group Publications
List of publications from the Advanced Live Cell Imaging Group.
Information for PhD Candidates
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