Dr Charlotte Kirchhelle | Department of Plant Sciences

Research interests

From edge to organ: the role of cell geometry in plant morphogenesis.

How do organisms develop the diverse anatomical shapes observed in nature? Answering this question is pivotal for our basic understanding of multicellular organisms and the rational improvement of domesticated species. However, the underlying process of morphogenesis is highly complex: it involves integrating different kinds of information (genetic, biochemical, biomechanical, and geometric) across multiple scales in space and time. Since this complexity poses a significant challenge to traditional experimental approaches, I will adopt an interdisciplinary approach combining classic molecular biology with state-of-the-art quantitative imaging and computational modelling to study plant morphogenesis, focussing on the recently identified role of cell geometric edges.

Publications

Kirchhelle C. and Moore I. (2017). A simple chamber for long-term confocal imaging of root and hypocotyl development. Journal of Visualised Experiments 123, e55331- e55331.

Kirchhelle, C., Chow, C.-M., Foucart, C., Neto, H., Stierhof, Y.-D., Kalde, M., Walton, C., Fricker, M., Smith, Richard S., Jérusalem, A., Irani, I., and Moore, I. (2016). The Specification of Geometric Edges by a Plant Rab GTPase Is an Essential Cell-Patterning Principle During Organogenesis in Arabidopsis. Developmental Cell 36, 386-400.

Enugutti, B., Kirchhelle, C., and Schneitz, K. (2013). On the genetic control of planar growth during tissue morphogenesis in plants. Protoplasma 250, 651-661.

Enugutti, B., Kirchhelle, C., Oelschner, M., Torres Ruiz, R.A., Schliebner, I., Leister, D., and Schneitz, K. (2012). Regulation of planar growth by the Arabidopsis AGC protein kinase UNICORN. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109, 15060-15065.

Research interests

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Publications