School of Biosciences Plant and Crop Sciences Division NEWSLETTER JUNE 2014 News and Events From the Editor.. Several reports on successful PhD students and their posters in this months newsletter and yet more breakthroughs in the world of roots! Kevin RECENT SUCCESSFUL PhD STUDENTS IN THE PLANT AND CROP SCIENCES DIVISION PAUL ANTHONY RETIRES…… Paul Anthony, long standing postdoc with the Mike Davey and Brian Power and more recently teaching technician, has retired from the Division. In a gathering in the Plant Sciences foyer Mike Davey said nice words about Paul and Paul thanked the Division for his time here. He will be very much missed Hongyang Yu (Supervisors Jerry Roberts and Zinnia Gonzalez) Thesis entitled “The study of Hawaiian skirt gene (HWS) suppressor in Arabidopsis and a WHS orthologous gene erect panicle 3 (EP3) in rice” Anisha Parmar (Supervisors Debbie Sparkes and Sean Mayes). Thesis entitled “Exploring resource use efficiency and resilience in ancient wheat species” Chuong Nguyen (Supervisors Debbie Sparkes and Sean Mayes). Thesis entitled “Identification of radiation use efficiency traits in a wheat and spelt population” Well done all! . Mike Davey and Paul Anthony Adu, MO; Chatot, A; Wiesel, L; Bennett, MJ; Broadley, MR; White, PJ; Dupuy, LX (2014) A scanner system for high-resolution quantification of variation in root growth dynamics of Brassica rapa genotypes. Journal of Experimental Botany 65: 20392048. Goh, T; Voss, U; Farcot, E; Bennett, MJ; Bishopp, A (2104) Systems biology approaches to understand the role of auxin in root growth and development. Physiologia Plantarum 151: 73-82 Special Issue: SI Perez-Fons, L; Wells, T; Corol, DI; Ward, JL; Gerrish, C; Beale, MH; Seymour, GB; Bramley, PM; Fraser, PD (2014) A genomewide metabolomic resource for tomato fruit from Solanum pennellii. Scientific Reports 4: 3859. DOI: 10.1038/srep03859 Gkatzionis, K; Yunita, D; Linforth, RST; Dickinson, M; Dodd, CER International Diversity and activities of yeasts from different parts of a Stilton cheese Journal of Food Microbiology 177: 109-116. SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS FROM PLANT AND CROP SCIENCES STAFF (in no particular order) Feldman, AB; Murchie, EH; Leung, H; Baraoidan, M; Coe, R; Yu, SM; Lo, SF; Quick, WP (2014) Increasing Leaf Vein Density by Mutagenesis: Laying the Foundations for C-4 Rice. PLOS ONE 9: Article Number: e94947 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094947 Mangalassery, S; Sjogersten, S; Sparkes, DL; Sturrock, CJ; Craigon, J; Mooney, SJ (2014) To what extent can zero tillage lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from temperate soils? Scientific Reports 4: 4586 DOI: 10.1038/srep04586. Richards, RS; Adams, IP; Kreuze, JF; De Souza, J; Cuellar, W; Dullemans, AM; Van der Vlugt, RAA; Glover, R; Hany, U; Dickinson, M; Boonham, N (2014) The complete genome sequences of two isolates of potato black ringspot virus and their relationship to other isolates and nepoviruses. Archives of Virology 159: 811815. Bassel GW, Stamm P, Mosca G, Barbier de Reuille P, Gibbs DJ, Winter R, Janka A, Holdsworth MJ, Smith RS (2014) Mechanical constraints imposed by 3D cellular geometry and arrangement modulate growth patterns in the Arabidopsis embryo. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences USA 111, 8685–8690 Band, LR; Wells, DM; Fozard, JA; Ghetiu, T; French, AP; Pound, MP; Wilson, MH; Yu, L; Li, WD; Hijazi, HI ; Oh, J; Pearce, SP; Perez-Amador, MA; Yun, J; Kramer, E; Alonso, JM; Godin, C; Vernoux, T; Hodgman, TC; Pridmore, TP; Swarup, R; King, JR; Bennett, MJ (2014) Systems Analysis of Auxin Transport in the Arabidopsis Root Apex. Plant Cell 26:862875. Bishopp, A; Bennett, MJ (2014) Hormone Crosstalk: Directing the Flow. Current Biology 24: R366-R368 Asymmetric cell division and lateral root formation As recently published by Kajala K, Ramakrishna P, Fisher A, Bergmann DC, De Smet I, Sozzani R, Weijers D, Brady SM (2014) Omics and modelling approaches for understanding regulation of asymmetric cell divisions in Arabidopsis and other angiosperm plants. Annals of Botany doi:10.1093/aob/mcu065 New water-hunting power of plant roots discovered Scientists have discovered how the presence of even small amounts of water can influence the structure of plant roots in soil, a finding that opens up new possibilities to improve water and nutrient foraging for important food crops. Significant improvements in crop yields are urgently required to meet the 50% increase in world population by 2050. The degree of root branching determines the efficiency of water uptake and acquisition of nutrients in crops. Understanding the regulation of root branching is therefore of vital importance. Using an advanced form of X-ray imaging BBSRC-funded researchers from The University of Nottingham, working with several international groups including colleagues in the USA, have discovered that root branching is profoundly influenced by the distribution of water in soil. An ability to precisely determine where water is in soil, which is different from a touch-reaction, affects the positioning of new lateral roots. Lateral roots (LR) form on the side of the main root in contact with water, but rarely on the dry side. 'Hydropatterning' The researchers have called this novel process 'hydropatterning' and showed that it is common to the experimental model species Arabidopsis as well as the important food crops maize and rice. Their results are published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Professor Malcolm Bennett, from The University of Nottingham’s School Of Biosciences, who led the UK team said: “We have discovered that plant roots can sense small differences in water availability across their diameter. Root branching is a target of hydropatterning, with lateral roots only forming on the side of the main root contacting water in soil. Identifying the genes and signals that control this process opens up new possibilities to improve water and nutrient foraging in crops.” X-ray CT power Professor Sacha Mooney, also from the School of Biosciences, added: “Research in this area has traditionally been hampered by the opacity of soil preventing us actually visualising root behaviour in situ and in three dimensions. This is an excellent example of how the latest imaging technologies such as X-ray micro Computed Tomography can help to provide new insights into important biological mechanisms.” The study also showed that a plant hormone called auxin was heavily involved in the hydropatterning process – higher water availability induced plants to produce the hormone, which controls hydropatterning in the roots. The work was a multidisciplinary collaboration between soil, computer and plant scientists at The University of Nottingham and a plant research group based at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California. In addition to BBSRC support the team received funding from the European Research Council (ERC), Royal Society, Wolfson Charitable Foundation, Distinguished Scientist Fellowship Program (DSFP) at King Saud University, Carnegie Institution for Science, the National Research Foundation of Singapore and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Yun Bao, Pooja Aggarwal, Neil E. Robbins, Craig J. Sturrock, Mark C. Thompson, Han Qi Tan, Cliff Tham, Lina Duan, Pedro L. Rodriguez, Teva Vernoux, Sacha J. Mooney, Malcolm J. Bennett and José R. Dinneny (2014) Plant roots use a patterning mechanism to position lateral root branches toward available water. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences USA. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1400966111 Early edition. POSTGRADUATE SYMPOSIUM At the recent Postgraduate Symposium for Plant and Crop Sciences students, the posters displayed by second year PhD students were voted for by Staff for the Don Grierson Prize and by students for the general poster competition. The winner of the Don Grierson Conference Prize was Priya Ramakrishna and the first three in the poster competition were: 1st Wenzhe Yin 2nd Priya Ramakrishna 3rd Bryari Al-Jaf From left: Wenzhe Yin, Priya Ramakrishna, Bryari Al-Jaf NEW MEMBERS OF THE PLANT AND CROP SCIENCES DIVISION Welcome to Jenny Bussell who has joined the Division as a PDRA on a new BBRO funded project 'Understanding soil plant interactions to improve sugar beet productivity and is working with Debbie Sparkes'. SCIENTIFIC EQUIVALENT OF A ROYAL ENCOUNTER On 11th June Malcolm Bennett (Wolfson Prize) and I (Newton Fellow) had the privilege of meeting with Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, Nobel laureate and all round good guy. This rare meeting was an opportunity for the Royal Society to increase communication with the regional FRSs (Fellows of the Royal Society) and lesser mortals such as myself, affiliated with the Royal Society. For me as an early career researcher it was an inspirational chance to hear the perspectives of some of our ‘royal’ scientists. The key take home message: Stick with it somehow no matter hard it seems! Following the meeting Sir Nurse graced a full auditorium with a PowerPoint-less discussion about his views on science funding for the Inaugural Life Sciences Annual Lecture. Personally my favourite quote from question time was "Scientists thrive best in an anarchist environment", but his views on funding people rather than Impact Statements was appreciated by all. There was a great turnout from Sutton Bonington and afterwards I had the great pleasure of introducing other members of our team to Sir Nurse. He was particularly impressed to meet Stephanie Smith, who won the same award as Sir Nurse at Birmingham University for Plant Science (The John Humphreys Memorial Prize in Botany). I only wish I taken a picture! At the risk of sounding like a Sir Nurse groupie myself, I also had the pleasure to attend the official launch of the Royal Society’s Vision for science and mathematics education in London on the 26th June. The report can be found at https://royalsociety.org/education/policy/vision/ for those of you interested. It was a great event with an introduction by Sir Nurse and Sir Martin Taylor and followed by a debate chaired by Prof. Jim Al-Khalili and panel members including Dame Julia Higgins (vice chair for the Vision committee), Rt Hon Lord Baker (Secretary of State for Education and Science 1986-1989), Rt Hon Charles Clarke (Secretary of State for Education 2002-2004), Dr Mary Bousted (General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers), and Mike Warriner (UK Engineering Director Google). Aside from the high number of letters in front of names, the event was also attended by students from local schools, teachers, lecturers and scientists who were given the chance to ask questions about the new Vision. It seems the biggest challenge they will face is increasing the quality of teachers which they aim to do through Continued Professional Development but also through stronger links with industry and research: at which Plant and Crop Science already excels. Mandy Rasmussen Malcolm Bennett, Paul Nurse, Mandy Rasmussen SUTTON BONINGTON STUDENT WINS FIRST PLACE AT THE UNIVERSITY-WIDE RESEARCH SHOWCASE Kamaljit Moirangthem, PhD student from the Bioenergy and Brewing Sciences Department has won the first place at the University-wide Research Showcase for his poster on “Dual purpose wheat- for a future that demands more food and energy”. He also won the Peer Recommendation Award, which was based on the votes of 50 fellow finalists of the showcase. Kamaljit is supervised by Professor Gregory Tucker and Ian and Julie King and works in the development of a wheat variety that can act as a solution to bridge the problem of using food crops effectively to both feed the world and generate biofuel.The award was presented by the keynote speaker for the eventSimon Singh, who is a best-selling science writer and film-maker and has directed Fermat's Last Theorem, a BAFTA award winning documentary about the world's most notorious mathematical problem. His talk also sparked an interesting discussion on how acceptable is tweaking of technical research by TV show producers into simple formats to make it understandable by a wide audience? The Research Showcase is organised annually by the University to provide a platform for students and staff to talk about their research in the simplest possible way to a new audience. The finalists for the showcase are picked based on a well-written press release to go on to present a poster at the main showcase. Afra Zaki and Priya Ramakrishna ( from Plant and Crop sciences) were two other finalists from SB, and we hope to see more next year! Kamaljit Moirangthem This Newsletter was edited entirely by Kevin Pyke, so any mistakes are Kevin’s fault. It is available online on the Plant and Crop Sciences web page at www.nottingham.ac.uk/biosciences/subject-areas/plantcrop/index.aspx Contributions for the next issue by July 21st 2014 to be published July 22nd 2014.