报告题目：Mechanisms of male meiotic restitution and polyploidization in plants

报  告 人：Prof. Danny GEELEN

Head of research unit “In vitro Biotechnology and Horticulture”.

Faculty Bioscience Engineering, Department Plant Production, Ghent University

报告时间：5月27日（星期五） 14:00

报告地点：闵行校区生物药学楼树华多功能厅

联  系 人：张大兵 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

报告人研究方向：

1. Plant propagation technology

Mass clonal plant propagation is an economically important activity that has a long tradition in Flanders. Gent is famous for example for its production of ornamentals such as azalea and spatiphyllum. My lab is organized as a plant tissue culture facility with ample flow benches and small tissue culture rooms. I aim to introduce innovation into tissue culture, which is traditionally largely based on trial, and error. For instance, we screen small chemicals, which enhance plant organogenesis and regeneration and study their mode of action. In recent years we focus on adventitious rooting and regeneration. The innovations developed are however not limited to these processes and we have an equal interest in microspore regeneration to produce haploid plants or somatic embryogenesis.

2. Sexual reproduction and breeding.

The lab isolated several tomato and Arabidopsis mutants that show spontaneous sexual polyploidization. These mutants provide novel insight in the mechanisms of ploidization and the selection of elite tetraploid progeny. Next, we develop strategies to manipulate genetic recombination and chromosome segregation. Environmental and genetic factors that influence recombination frequency are being studied with the aim to create novel methods for plant breeding. We reported that cold affects a specific stage of microsporogenesis resulting in the formation of diploid spores. Recently we have focussed on high temperature and its effects on microsporogenesis. Here to we find diploid pollen formation with in addition other types of defects. The genetics and hormone regulatory pathways that underlay these environmental responses are now being investigated.

3. Hydroponic cultivation systems

In the frame of a collaboration with the European Space Agency ESA we are developing a novel hydroponic cultivation system that is designed to analyse mass balances and to study plant-microbe interactions. The objective is to develop a life support system for space exploration. Spin out activities are being developed to generate on earth applications in the sector of urban crop production.