Developmental Genomics

Research focus

Soon after fertilization of the egg and sperm, the zygotic genome is transcriptionally active and drives a series of coordinated cell divisions and gene regulatory programs to establish the basic plant body plan. Although decades of research have deciphered the molecular mechanisms regulating these fundamental processes in animal embryos, much less is known about them in plants. Rather than a lack of interest, this is primarily due to the difficulty in studying early plant embryos because they are small and deeply embedded within maternal tissues. To circumvent these limitations, we have developed molecular biology, microscopy and bioinformatics approaches to characterize the molecular basis of body plan formation at the beginning of plant life.

Selected publications

Gutzat R, Rembart K, Nussbaumer T, et al. (2020) Arabidopsis shoot stem cells display dynamic transcription and DNA methylation patterns. EMBO J 39(20):e103667 preprint bioRxiv:430447.

Kao P and Nodine MD (2019) Transcriptional Activation of Arabidopsis Zygotes Is Required for Initial Cell Divisions. Sci Rep 9(1):17159 preprint bioRxiv:679035.

Plotnikova A, Kellner MJ, ..., Nodine MD (2019) MicroRNA Dynamics and Functions During Arabidopsis Embryogenesis. Plant Cell 31(12):2929-46 preprint bioRxiv:633735.

Hofmann F, Schon MA, Nodine MD (2019) The embryonic transcriptome of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Reprod 32(1):77-91 preprint: bioRxiv:479584.

Schon MA, Kellner MJ, ..., Nodine MD (2018) NanoPARE: parallel analysis of RNA 5' ends from low-input RNA. Genome Res 28(12):1931-42

Schon M and Nodine M (2017) Widespread Contamination of Arabidopsis Embryo and Endosperm Transcriptome Datasets. Plant Cell 29(4):608-17.