IBH Seminar: BARVISTA. Cell-resolved transcriptomics & gene expression imputation uncovers barley gene regulatory networks

When: Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

The International Barley Hub is pleased to announce the first in the 2025 series of seminars: ‘BARVISTA. Cell-resolved transcriptomics & gene expression imputation uncovers barley gene regulatory networks’ presented by Rüdiger Simon, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf

Seminar promo graphic

Summary:

The defined shoot architecture of grasses like barley (Hordeum vulgare) involves the sequential specification of distinct meristem types, and tight spatio-temporal control of organ initiation and differentiation. The underlying gene regulatory networks are likely conserved during evolution, and different shoot architectures are achieved by modification of these core networks, which is supported by mutant phenotypes. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the genetic underpinnings of shoot architectures in the grasses, we investigated gene expression programs at cellular resolution during vegetative and generative development of the barley shoot apical meristem. We established BARVISTA  (barley virtual in situ transcriptome atlas), which integrates single-cell RNA sequencing data with spatially resolved expression data via gene expression imputation. We show that BARVISTA enables virtual microdissection and comprehensive gene expression analysis of individual cells, cell groups, organs or entire inflorescences, and how BARVISTA can be used to characterise mutants and explore genetic networks underpinning developmental processes with cellular resolution.

Speakers bio:

Rüdiger Simon´s lab is interested in understanding how plants control their growth and differentiation through intrinsic programmes and in response to environmental signals. 

Rüdiger studied biology at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he received his PhD in 1990 for research on transposable elements in maize and meristem development in tomato.

He joined the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK as a postdoctoral researcher to work with Enrico Coen on flower development in Antirrhinum. He spent a period at the IPK in Gatersleben to study nematode resistance genes in tomato, before moving to the John Innes Centre to work with George Coupland on the control of flowering time in Arabidopsis.

In 1996, he started his own lab at the University of Cologne with a focus on stem cell regulation in plant meristems. In 2002, he accepted a call for a professorship in plant developmental genetics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. 

The Simon Lab´s research focusses on the activities of meristems, their initiation and organisation and principles of intercellular signalling pathways. Such signalling pathways are mediated by secreted peptides, but also involve transport through plasmodesmata. The lab uses a wide range of different tools to unravel these processes: molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics and genomics, and very detailed imaging (microscopy) approaches that allow to investigate signal transduction processes, assembly and disassembly of protein complexes and protein-protein interaction with subcellular resolution in the living plant. 

Recent focus points are studies on meristem development in barley, structural and functional analysis of plasmodesmata in a variety of different organisms and gene regulatory networks that control plant architecture.