Biology

Dr. Pradeep Das
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France

The mechanisms that drive growth, development and morphogenesis in plants and animals have been an important area of investigation for decades. It is clear that the emergence of stereotypical positions, shapes and sizes of tissues or organs requires the coordinated regulation of very specific growth patterns across space and time during development. Much of this coordination occurs via signalling cues provided by growth regulators (morphogens, growth factors etc.). In this context, our group seeks to gain a clearer understanding of how flower development in the model plant Arabisopsis thaliana, is governed by the underlying molecular, genetic and physical events. While much is known about the genetics of flower development, much less is known about its mechanical aspects, and about how growth manifests at a physical level. The most obvious way to measure and describe growth is at the cellular level, and to this end, we have developed an experimental method to computationally track the growth of Arabidopsis flowers at cell resolution and in four dimensions. We use this resource to address different aspects of patterning and morphogenesis in the flower. I will present two such projects below. The first aims to explore the molecular mechanisms necessary for the establishment of very specific spatio-temporal floral gene expression patterns. The second project revolves around the increased mechanical rigidity that we have recently observed in stem cells at the shoot apex; I will outline our efforts to understand the role of this increased stiffness on plant morphogenesis.