The University of Tokyo · Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Professor Misato Ohtani's research lab focuses on the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying cell wall development and vascular cell differentiation in plants, with a particular emphasis on the transcriptional regulation of secondary cell wall formation and xylem vessel development. The lab investigates key transcription factors, such as NAC and VND family proteins, and their roles in wood formation and stress responses, using model systems like Arabidopsis and poplar. They also explore post-translational modifications, including S-nitrosylation, and signaling pathways involving SnRK2 kinases in abiotic stress adaptation. Their work bridges developmental biology and plant biotechnology, aiming to enhance understanding of plant cell fate determination and biomass production.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Plant cells biosynthesize primary cell walls (PCW) in all cells and produce secondary cell walls (SCWs) in specific cell types that conduct water and/or provide mechanical support, such as xylem vessels and fibers. The characteristic mechanical stiffness, chemical recalcitrance, and hydrophobic nature of SCWs result from the organization of SCW-specific biopolymers, i.e., highly ordered cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Synthesis of these SCW-specific biopolymers requires SCW-specific enzyme
The development of cells specialized for water conduction or support is a striking innovation of plants that has enabled them to colonize land. The NAC transcription factors regulate the differentiation of these cells in vascular plants. However, the path by which plants with these cells have evolved from their nonvascular ancestors is unclear. We investigated genes of the moss Physcomitrella patens that encode NAC proteins. Loss-of-function mutants formed abnormal water-conducting and supportin
Wood harvested from trees is one of the most widely utilized natural materials on our planet. Recent environmental issues have prompted an increase in the demand for wood, especially as a cost-effective and renewable resource for industry and energy, so it is important to understand the process of wood formation. In the present study, we focused on poplar (Populus trichocarpa) NAC domain protein genes which are homologous to well-known Arabidopsis transcription factors regulating the differentia
Subfamily 2 of SNF1-related protein kinase (SnRK2) plays important roles in plant abiotic stress responses as a global positive regulator of abscisic acid signaling. In the genome of the model tree Populus trichocarpa, 12 SnRK2 genes have been identified, and some are upregulated by abiotic stresses. In this study, we heterologously overexpressed the PtSnRK2 genes in Arabidopsis thaliana and found that overexpression of PtSnRK2.5 and PtSnRK2.7 genes enhanced stress tolerance. In the PtSnRK2.5 an
Post-translational modifications of proteins have important roles in the regulation of protein activity. One such modification, S-nitrosylation, involves the covalent binding of nitric oxide (NO)-related species to a cysteine residue. Recent work showed that protein S-nitrosylation has crucial functions in plant development and environmental responses. In the present study, we investigated the importance of protein S-nitrosylation for xylem vessel cell differentiation using a forward genetics ap
The transcription machinery of small nuclear RNA (snRNA) genes has been investigated extensively in human cell-free systems, but its physiological function in vivo has not been addressed. This paper demonstrates the physiological role of an activator of snRNA transcription using a temperature-sensitive mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana, srd2. Phenotypic characteristics of the srd2 mutant suggest that the SRD2 gene participates in the control of competence in cell proliferation. The SRD2 gene encode
One crucial problem that plants faced during their evolution, particularly during the transition to growth on land, was how to transport water, nutrients, metabolites, and small signaling molecules within a large, multicellular body. As a solution to this problem, land plants developed specific tissues for conducting molecules, called water-conducting cells (WCCs) and food-conducting cells (FCCs). The well-developed WCCs and FCCs in extant plants are the tracheary elements and sieve elements, re
Vascular plants have two types of water-conducting cells, xylem vessel cells (in angiosperms) and tracheid cells (in ferns and gymnosperms). These cells are commonly characterized by secondary cell wall (SCW) formation and programmed cell death (PCD), which increase the efficiency of water conduction. The differentiation of xylem vessel cells is regulated by a set of NAC (NAM, ATAF1/2 and CUC2) transcription factors, called the VASCULAR-RELATED NAC-DOMAIN (VND) family, in Arabidopsis thaliana Li
Xylem vessels, the water-conducting cells in vascular plants, undergo characteristic secondary wall deposition and programmed cell death. These processes are regulated by the VASCULAR-RELATED NAC-DOMAIN (VND) transcription factors. Here, to identify changes in metabolism that occur during protoxylem vessel element differentiation, we subjected tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) BY-2 suspension culture cells carrying an inducible VND7 system to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based wide-target m
Post-transcriptional RNA quality control is a vital issue for all eukaryotes to secure accurate gene expression, both on a qualitative and quantitative level. Among the different mechanisms, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an essential surveillance system that triggers degradation of both aberrant and physiological transcripts. By targeting a substantial fraction of all transcripts for degradation, including many alternative splicing variants, NMD has a major impact on shaping transcriptom
Small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) are protein-RNA complexes composed of specific snRNP-associated proteins along with small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), which are non-coding RNA molecules abundant in the nucleus. snRNPs mainly function as core components of the spliceosome, the molecular machinery for pre-mRNA splicing. Thus, snRNP biogenesis is a critical issue for plants, essential for the determination of a cell's activity through the regulation of gene expression. The complex process of sn
Lateral root primordia are initiated by anticlinal division of cells in the pericycle and are constructed through an ordered set of cell divisions. At the completion of the development of the primordium, cell division ceases, after which the lateral root meristem is activated. In Arabidopsis, this course of lateral root morphogenesis was found to be significantly susceptible to srd2-1, a temperature-sensitive mutation of the SRD2 gene encoding an activator of small nuclear RNA (snRNA) transcript
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