Welcome to Laboratory of Plant Functional Analyses (Misato's Lab)!
It is April 2024, the spring of the sixth year of the Otani Institute!
Last year was a year of active international exchange, with a major international conference (ICAR2023) held in Japan, and exchange/internship students coming from all over the world. At the end
of the school year, five students left our lab: although we were sad to see them go, we were also encouraged by the growth of these students.
New members (master students, postdoctoral researchers, new exchange students, etc.) from Japan and abroad are scheduled to join us in FY2024.
We will strive to further our research activities!
Fifth year of Misato Ohtani's lab has been started!
In this laboratory, we aim to obtain molecular information on how plants sense and react to environmental conditions, to control flexibly cell proliferation and differentiation for an active control of individual.
June 1st, 2023
Congratulation!
Dr. Arae received Young Investigator Paper Award (DGD Award)（JSDB）for Arae et al. (2022) DGD 64 (1), 5-15.
March 21, 2024
Degree Conferral Ceremony and Thesis Award Ceremony
Five students successfully received their master's degrees. At the award ceremony held at the same time, two of our students were awarded the Special Encouragement Award for their master's
thesis.
I am sure that they were able to run through the two years together while improving each other's skills. I hope you will make the most of your experience here and spread your wings far and wide.
I wish you all the best!
2024. 2. 9. Mr. Ma Ya (D1) and Mr. Kengo Torizuka (M2)
received
Special Encouragement Award for Master's Thesis, Department of Advanced Biosciences, 2023!
Ma Ya and Kengo Torizuka (M2) received the Special Encouragement Award for Master's Thesis at the Master's Thesis Review Committee of the Department of Advanced Biosciences in 2023. This is the first time that two students from the same laboratory have received the award at the same time. We are happy that the results of their hard work were highly evaluated.
Ms. Torizuka also received an award for excellence at the master's thesis presentation discussion. Congratulations!
2024. 1. 22. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Horvat, B., Shikakura, Y., Ohtani, M., Demura, T., Kikuchi, A., Watanabe, K. N., & Oguchi, T. (2024). Heterogeneous Expression of Arabidopsis Subclass II of SNF1-Related Kinase 2 Improves Drought Tolerance via Stomatal Regulation in Poplar. Life (Basel, Switzerland), 14(1), 161. https://doi.org/10.3390/life14010161
2023. 10. 14. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Uy ALT#, Yamamoto A#, Matsuda M, Arae T, Hasunuma T, Demura T, Ohtani M* (2023) The Carbon Flow Shifts from Primary to Secondary Metabolism during Xylem Vessel Cell Differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana, Plant and Cell Physiology, pcad130 (# equally contributed)
2023. 8. 18. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Nagahage ISP, Matsuda K, Miyashita K, Fujiwara S, Mannapperuma C, Yamada T, Sakamoto S, Ishikawa T, Nagano M, Ohtani M, Kato K, Uchimiya H, Mitsuda N, Kawai-Yamada M, Demura T, Yamaguchi M. (2023) NAC domain transcription factors VNI2 and ATAF2 form protein complexes and regulate leaf senescence. Plant Direct, 7(9):e529.
Mar 23, 2023.
2023 Degree Conferral Ceremony was held.
Three Master course students were successfully obtained their master's degrees in March 2023. One of them will continue on to a doctoral program, and two will leave the lab. They had a lot of challenges, but they all made it to the end of their studies. We wish them all the best for the future!
Sep 22, 2022 Natsu Takayanagi（D1）obtained
Excellent Poster Award in the 4th meeting of young
researchers in Plant-Structure-Opt (MEXT-JSPS)
Sep12, 2022 Ami Takeuchi（D1）obtained Student Award (JSPB) 2022
https://www.jspb.jp/2022student_award/
2022. 8. 3. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Shikakura Y, *Oguchi T, Yu X, Ohtani M, Demura T, Kikuchi A, Watanabe KN (2022) Transgenic poplar trees overexpressing AtGolS2, a stress‐responsive galactinol synthase gene derived from Arabidopsis thaliana, improved drought tolerance in a confined field. Transgenic Res in press
2022. 7. 16. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Umeda-Hara C, Iwakawa H, Ohtani M, Demura T, Matsumoto T, Kikuchi J, Murata K, Umeda M (2022) Tetraploidization promotes radial stem growth in poplars. Plant Biotechnol. in press
2022. 5. 13. Original Article Paper Accepted!
Takayanagi N, Mukai M, Sugiyama M, and Ohtani M (2022) Transcriptional
regulation of cell proliferation competence-associated Arabidopsis genes, CDKA;1, RID1,
and SRD2
by phytohormones in tissue culture. Plant Biotechnol. in
press
Special Focus Issue「The Biomechanics of Plant Cell Walls」
in Plant & Cell Physiology,
A special issue of "The Biomechanics of Plant Cell Walls," in which Ohtani participated as a guest Editor, has been published as the December 2021 issue of Plant & Cell Physiology. It includes original papers related to our laboratory. The special issue also provides an overview of the latest developments in plant cell wall research.
Dec 9, 2021 Original Article Paper Accepted!
Arae T, Nakakoji M, Noguchi M, Kamon E, Sano R, Demura T*, Ohtani M* (2021) Plant secondary cell wall proteome analysis with an inducible system for xylem vessel cell differentiation. Dev. Growth Differ. in press
Nov 20, 2021 Fuma Ikuta（M2）obtained Excellent Presentation
Award in the 15th meeting of plant cell wall network
Sep 29, 2021 Review Paper Accepted!
Kamon E, Ohtani M* (2021) Xylem vessel cell differentiation: a best model for new integrative cell biology? Curr Opin Plant Biol
Sep 22, 2021 Natsu Takayanagi（M2）obtained Excellent Poster
Award in the 3rd meeting of young researchers in Plant-Structure-Opt (MEXT-JSPS)
Dec 2020 Special Issue "Approaches for strategies of mechanical optimization in plants" was published in Plant BiotechnologyMisato Ohtani was involved in as an Editor in this special issue!
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/plantbiotechnology/37/4/_contents/-char/en
Sep 2019 Special Focus Issue "RNA-mediated Plant Behaviour" was published in Plant & Cell Physiology
Misato Ohtani was involved in as an Editor in this focus issue!
Totipotency of Plant Cells
One of characteristics of plant cells is “totipotency”. This nature can be recognized through, for example, organ regeneration. Now we propose the hypothesis that RNA metabolism would support the expression of totipotency in plant cells. These RNA metabolism studies will be deepened, by further analysis of molecular mechanisms controlling the cell potency of plants.
Biopolymer Dynamics
Generally mobility of plants is quite low, thus plant cells should constantly response to changes in environmental factors, to maintain the homeostasis of cell function. We elucidate roles for biopolymer dynamics in environmental response of plants, focusing on RNA (the essential molecules for gene expression) and cell walls (the first barrier against the external environment for plant cells).
Woody Biomass Biosynthesis
Aggravated environmental problems strongly require us to change the style of social activities. Towards a sustainable social system, we promote to understand the biosynthesis of woody biomass. The understanding of secondary cell wall biosynthesis as a system and the explore of evolutionary origin of secondary cell walls are pursued by comparative- and trans-omics approaches.