• Cell Biology, Vesicle Trafficking, SNAREs
• Arabidopsis, Chlamydomonas, Plants

Teaching interests:

• Bio105- General Biology
• Bio315- Cell Biology
• Bio491- Capstone in Biology

Research interests:

Functional analysis of SNAREs and polarized vesicle trafficking in plants:

The secretory system is essential to the proper function of all eukaryotic cells. As with all eukaryotes, plants face the difficult task of directing cargo to many different destinations while using a common set of endomembrane compartments. Clearly, a complex and specific vesicle trafficking machinery is required, and one aspect of this machinery is a class of integral membrane proteins called SNAREs. My lab uses the model plant Arabidopsis, a system with well established cell biological, biochemical and genetic tools that we use to study the functions of SNAREs in the secretory/endocytic pathways. In particular my lab focuses on those SNAREs involved in two processes: 1) cell plate formation and cytokinesis and 2) polarized secretion in non-dividing cells. Both of these processes are part of essential cellular pathways, and are required for plant growth and development.

Cell plate formation is unique to land plants, and is an required step for cytokinesis in these organisms. As a novel vesicle trafficking pathway, it is not surprising that it requires novel types of SNARE proteins that are not found in animals or fungi. My lab is investigating the role of these novel types of SNAREs as well as the role of the Golgi and other endocytic organelles is cell plate formation. Again using cell biological and genetic approaches, we investigate the role of individual SNAREs and particular trafficking pathways to cell plate formation. Since growth and development is ultimately dependant on cell division, understanding the mechanics of this process has implications on almost all aspects of plant life.

An interesting development with regard to the latter process is the identification of the novel cell-plate-specific SNARE proteins in the unicellular algae Chlamydomonas. A distant relative of land plants, this unicellular green algae divides without formation of a cell plate. Though not as well developed of a model system, there are some intriguing biological processes that can be investigated in Chlamydomonas, and my lab has begun a pilot project to investigate the function of the homologues of the cell-plate-specific SNAREs in this algae. Examining the role of these proteins in Chlamydomonas could greatly assist my work on the function of these proteins in Arabidopsis, as well as shed light on the evolution of cell-plate mediated cytokinesis.