Edouard Pesquet Professor
Kontakt
Namn och titel: Edouard PesquetProfessor
Epost: edouard.pesquet@su.se
Telefon: +468161061
ORCID0000-0002-6959-3284 Länk till annan webbplats.
Arbetsplats: Institutionen för ekologi miljö och botanik Länk till annan webbplats.
Besöksadress Rum N414Svante Arrhenius väg 20 A
Postadress Institutionen för ekologi miljö och botanik106 91 Stockholm
Om mig
Principal Investigator of "Cell differentiation and coordination in tissues" research team
Plants represent the ideal renewable resource for our society's transition to a green circular and sustainable bioeconomy. Plant productivity and resistance to climate change is enabled by its vascular system that has a dual function: (i) to transport water and minerals absorbed by the roots to all other plant organs to circumvent terrestrial life air dryness and (ii) to reinforce mechanically the axis of plant organs to resist gravity. This vascular tissue, also called XYLEM, enables both the transport of water and minerals (N, S, P,...) up to the leaves and strengthen plant organs for physical support.
My research team focuses on establishing innovative systems and methods – such as inducible pluripotent cell cultures, domesticating plant species, or chemical imaging methods – to understand the cell and development biology of plant vascular system and its role in climate change resilience.
To do so, we combine genetic engineering in both whole plants and single cells (in various plant species both model such as Arabidopsis thaliana or poplar, agricultural such as sorghum,… as well as wild plant species) with morphological, biochemical and biophysical imaging methods for plants/cells submitted to environmental challenges such as the ones due to climate change (drought, waterlogging, wind,…). We can thus decipher what are the properties in their cell wall biochemical composition, cell type morphology and tissue organisation that improve plant resilience to climate change without affecting growth rate or yield.
Altogether, we aim to establish biological alternatives for producing plant cell wall biomass capable of sustaining climate change as well as enabling our society’s transition from fossil to biological resources for a green circular and sustainable bioeconomy.
Teaching activities:
My main teaching activities relate to the theoretical and practical understanding of plant cell biology and plant development - mainly focusing on stem-cell dynamics, cell differentiation, cytolosolic components (membrane trafficking, cytoskeleton,..) and high-throughput analyses (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics). My teaching is made at all levels from Bachelor to PhD students.
Courses implicated addressing Plant Biology at Stockholm University:
- Bachelor-level courses - Cell and Molecular Biology [BL2018]; Development Biology [BL4009]: Gene, Cell and Population [BL2011]; Plant Physiology [BL2016]; Basic Cell Biology [BL2038]; Diversity and Evolution of Organisms [BL2031]
- Master-level courses - Green Biotechnology [BL7051]; Methods in Molecular Life Science [BL8064]; Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions [BL8020]; Molecular Cell Biology [BL7046]
- PhD-level course - Philosophy of Biological Sciences; Fundaments in Lignin Biology
(1) Developing novel advanced methods for imaging biomolecules
The "Cell differentiation and coordination in tissues" group is establishing and optimizing novel methods to directly assess changes in amount and chemical composition of plant biomass from biopsies with sub µm resolution. These techniques called “in situ quantitative chemical imaging” thus enable to directly evaluate changes in plant biomass levels and composition without having to grid and destroy the cellular and tissular organization of plants.
Recent breakthroughs in in situ quantitative chemical imaging from our research group include:
- Solving the Wiesner test, a 150-year old mystery for one of the most used histochemical staining in Plant Biology [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00109]
- Using UV-excited autofluorescence to define changes in distribution and composition of plant biomass [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6722-3_17]
- Establishing Raman spectroscopy for quantitative analysis of changes in the chemistry of plant biomass [https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c00194]
(2) Understanding cell type specific formation and function
The "Cell differentiation and coordination in tissues" group investigates the molecular and cellular processes enabling specific cell types to form in plant tissues. We have thus developed unique technology using inducible pluripotent cell suspension cultures (iPSCs) to produce on-demand the plant cell type that we want to study and can thus follow its formation during time.
Recent breakthroughs in inducible pluripotent cell suspension cultures (iPSCs) from our research group include:
- Establishing iPSCs technology for plants [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6722-3_4]
- Technology available using plant cell cultures [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2019.02.001]
Recent breakthroughs in understanding wood cell type formation from our research group include:
- How is biomass composition linked to cellular function for wood cells [https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac284]
- How is cell wall organization linked to cellular function for wood cells [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.02.057]
(3) Understanding plant biomass formation
The "Cell differentiation and coordination in tissues" group investigates the formation and organization of the plant carbon biomass that is accumulated in plant cell walls. We mainly focus on the molecular mechanisms controlling changes in cell wall composition (mostly lignin) and organization (mostly through microtubule guidance).
Recent breakthroughs in identifying the molecular mechanism controlling cell wall composition from our research group include:
- Modelling laccase paralogs for differential activity in plants and other organisms [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.754601]
- Functional studies of laccase paralog combinations in controlling cell wall composition between cell types [https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac344]
Recent breakthroughs in identifying the molecular mechanism controlling cell wall organization from our research group include:
- Understanding of the quantitative changes in proteins restructuring inner cellular skeleton to guide cell wall organization [https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.15.00314]
- Functional studies of specific proteins restructuring inner cellular skeleton to guide cell wall organization [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.02.057]
- Understanding the tuneable hydrophobicity confered by lignins [https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.705059]
