Tongda XU, Ph.D, Young Investigator
Tongda Xu received his Bachelor degree from Peking University (P.R. China) in 2003. He worked as research assistant in Prof Chentao Lin's lab at Chinese academy of agricultural sciences from 2003 to 2005. He got his Ph.D degree from Prof Zhenbiao Yang's lab at University of California Riverside in Sept 2010. After a short period of post-doc training in UC Riverside, he joined Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory as a Young Investigator in Jan 2011.
You may wish to contact Dr XU Tongda at: Tel: (65) 6872 7000 , 68727554 (DID) or 68727819 (lab) Email: tongda@tll.org.sgResearch interest:
- Cell division pattern regulation
- Auxin signaling in plant
Research Projects:
Auxin is a multi-functional phytohormone controlling growth and developmental patterning by regulating cell expansion, division, and differentiation in plant. Recent elegant studies have established a simple auxin perception and signaling mechanism controlling auxin induced gene expression. Auxin binds the TIR1-family F-box proteins and stabilizes their interaction with the IAA/AUX proteins, which are transcriptional repressors. This interaction activates degradation of IAA/AUX proteins, and then release auxin-induced gene expression. However, this pathway does not account for auxin-induced rapid responses such as cytoskeletal reorganization and cell expansion, which occur within a 1-2 minutes independent of auxin-induced gene expression. Recent work indicate that ABP1 mediate a new auxin signaling pathway on PM that can activate ROP signaling pathway within seconds. However the molecular mechanism about this pathway is largely unknown. We aim to figure out the new components and functions involved in this pathway.
1. Cell division pattern: Auxin distribution patterns which is modulated by auxin transport is essential for the cell division pattern during embryogenesis or organ initiation. We hope to test that extracellular auxin patterns can be sensed by the auxin receptor complex on PM and then determine the cell division orientation in each cell and finally determine the cell orientation pattern.
2. Identify new auxin signaling components: We have generate a couple new approaches to identify the more components in ABP1-mediated auxin signaling pathway on PM.
Following by the identification of new auxin signaling pathway, we will try to integrate all the information we have to explain the essential but complicated role of auxin in plant development. we aim to figure out how cell surface based auxin pathways coordinate with nucleus based auxin pathway to regulate plant growth.