Speaker: Juan Dong, Sadie Hatfield Professor in biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M University 

Title: "Spatiotemporal control of stomatal asymmetric cell division by polarity proteins"

Abstract: Stomatal development and patterning provide an excellent system to study molecular mechanisms underlying plant asymmetric cell division (ACD), a process requiring precisely timed cell division and differentiation. The plant-specific protein BASL (BREAKING OF ASYMMETRY IN THE STOMATAL LINEAGE) is polarized throughout stomatal ACD processes, including the precursor cells (where cell division is active) and one of the two daughter cells (where cell differentiation is active). In my talk, I will discuss recent progress and current understanding about how the BASL polarity protein complex ensures high cell-division potential before an ACD and specifies daughter-cell fate differentiation after an ACD. I will further elaborate our recent identification of a BSL1-based spatiotemporal molecular switch that enables the transition from cell division to cell differentiation during stomatal ACD and how this switch is coordinated with the cell cycle regulation. The second half of my talk will expand to our new discoveries about auxin signaling in developmental patterning and how the TMK receptormediated local auxin signaling guides stomatal ACD to execute orientated cell division properly in Arabidopsis.

Host: Joe Aung, genetics, development and cell biology assistant professor