Mechano-Electric Regulation at the Plant Cell Periphery

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this award is to open up new, biophysical, approaches to studying regulation of the plant as it undergoes development and as it experiences environmental viscissitudes. Although one of the most important sites of regulation the plant cell periphery, which interfaces with neighbor cells and with the environment has been historically difficult to study with biochemical techniques, emerging biophysical methods are permitting kinds of data acquisition and analysis that promise to raise understanding to a new level. These techniques are valuable because of the very fact that the periphery of the plant cell is a mechanical structure in which complex load-bearing elements play feedback roles with biochemical signals and pathways. The system cannot be understood without mechanical analysis. The experiments of this project combine high-resolution multidimensional microscopy of living cells with a mathematical method called finite element analysis to elucidate how one common but newly discovered set of peripheral structures helps stabilize cells mechanically under set conditions yet participates in transitions to new cell states as developmental and environmental parameters change. Particular focus will be on mechanical stresses such as wind and desiccation. These interdisciplinary studies should suggest new tools for agricultural stress management and approaches to genetic manipulation of crop plants. More broadly, successes will direct attention to the timely effort to expand the important field of plant biophysics, historically overshadowed by biochemistry and molecular biology. Outreach plans will bring underprivileged public high school girls to Washington University for "Saturdays with a Scientist": interdisciplinary labs, lectures, historical perspectives and social interactions to help them realize possibilities offered by rigorous study of the sciences. Social interactions will be maintained with these girls throughout high school to provide role models and informal career counseling as they progress academically, develop their goals and, presumably, consider application to universities.