The Phillip Benfey lab aims to address questions about differentiation in cells. Differentiation occurs when stem cells divide into a cell that keeps renewing itself, and another immature cell that will eventually become a functional cell. The lab looks at this phenomenon in plants, specifically in the Arabidospis Thaliana. These plants are used because the differentiation in their cells is clearly seen in the roots. The stem cells are located at the bottom of the root, and following the root up, cells become more and more differentiated becoming larger and more complex. This makes it easy to notice what happens as the cells are gradually maturing. The Benfey lab looks at the differentiation of cells in the endodermal cell layer of the roots. This is because they may use the expression or non-expression of a feature seen only in mature endodermal cells to understand how the presence or absence of certain transcription factors relates to cell maturation.
Within cells, there are many transcription factors, or proteins that can help turn DNA into RNA. These transcription factors could be vital to the overall cell development. My project works on looking at the effects of a transcription factor called STK01 that may inhibit, or activate other transcription factors that lead to the expression of the trait found in mature endodermal cells. I will be doing this by looking at the changes within the root of STK01 mutants.
I am excited to learn if this transcription factor really does play a role in the development of mature cells or not.
