CoE/ViPS Invited Seminar May 2025

Chin-Min Ho, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Date: 14th May  2025

Time: 13:00

Title: Investigating leaf epidermis: from development to tissue organization and unique features

Location: Auditorium 1041, Biocentre 2, Viikinkaari 5

Host: Anne Vaten

Abstract: The leaf epidermis plays a crucial role as the plant's frontline, regulating CO2 entry for photosynthesis while providing protection against dehydration. This talk will explore the importance and uniqueness of the leaf epidermis from three perspectives: cell, tissue, and morphology. First, the leaf epidermis comprises multiple cell types organized in specific patterns. However, how the epidermal stem cells decide to differentiate into different cell types has been a critical question in developmental biology. Unlike the previous understanding of homeodomain proteins as transcription factors, we identified a novel homeodomain-like (HDL) protein that interacts with histone modifiers to form chromatin condensates during the S phase, reshaping the chromatin landscape and influencing cell cycle and fate decisions. Second, I will examine how epidermal cells affect the arrangement of the underlying mesophyll cells and demonstrate the significance of coordinated tissue growth for efficient photosynthesis. Lastly, I will use luffa as an example to illustrate how our research can be applied in agriculture. The leaf structure of luffa contains extrafloral nectaries that play a role in plant defense. We found that these extrafloral nectaries are actually specialized features of the leaf epidermis, and the cellular arrangement within the leaf tissue facilitates nectar secretion. By elucidating leaf epidermal development and its role in leaf tissue organization, we can better understand developmental plasticity in plants and explore opportunities for enhancing plant growth under changing conditions.

Kimmy Ho is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She has been interested in how cells divide appropriately and obtain specific cell fates in a complex tissue. As a principal investigator in Academia Sinica, her group investigates the leaf epidermal development, focusing on the cell fate determination, cuticle formation and the arrangement of mesophyll cells integrated to form proper epidermal patterns and achieve better water use efficiency. In 2024, she was selected as a member of the EMBO global investigators.

Read more about Kimmy's work

Related publications:

Ali, A., Kuan, C., Hung, F.-Y., Chen, T.-C., Li, H.-C., Yang, S.-L., Feng, Y.-R., Wu, K., and Ho, C.-M.K.* (2023) The HOMEODOMAIN-Like protein HDL mediates chromatin organization and rewires leaf epidermal patterning. bioRxiv, 2023.2009.2013.557516. DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.13.557516.

Kuan, C., Yang, S.-L., and Ho, C.-M.K.* (2022). Using quantitative methods to understand leaf epidermal development. Quantitative Plant Biology 3. e28. DOI: 10.1017/qpb.2022.25.

Tsai, M.-Y., Kuan, C., Guo, Z.-L., Yang, H.-A., Chung, K.-F.*, and Ho, C.-M.K. * (2022). Stomatal clustering in Begonia improves water use efficiency by modulating stomatal movement and leaf structure. Plant-Environment Interactions 3(4), 141-154. DOI: 10.1002/pei3.10086.

Yang, S.-L., Tran, N., Tsai, M.-Y., and Ho, C.-M.K.* (2022). Misregulation of MYB16 causes stomatal cluster formation by disrupting polarity during asymmetric cell division. The Plant Cell 43, 455-476. DOI: 10.1093/plcell/koab260.

Ho, C.-M.K.*, Bringmann, M., Oshima, Y., Mitsuda, N., Bergmann, D.C.* (2021). Transcriptional profiling reveals signatures of latent developmental potential in Arabidopsis stomatal lineage ground cells. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences 118(17), e2021682118. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2021682118.