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Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University *Profile is at the time of the award.
2022Inamori Research GrantsBiology & Life sciences
I am grateful for the opportunity to work on a completely new research topic. I will strive to contribute to the understanding of an important proposition in developmental biology, namely, the evolution of plant form.
In this study, we established a simple and versatile live-cell imaging method for visualizing plant reproductive cells located deep within flowers and seeds by staining the plasma membrane with the fluorescent dye FM4-64. By staining young Arabidopsis thaliana seeds and culturing them under the microscope, we were able to continuously trace the morphology and division dynamics of egg cells, zygotes, and early embryos in vivo. In combination with deep-tissue imaging technology such as two-photon excitation microscopy, our approach enables quantitative time-lapse analysis of the early patterning of embryogenesis. Furthermore, this method is applicable not only to the angiosperm Arabidopsis but also to the liverwort Marchantia and the fern Ceratopteris, and does not require stable genetic transformation, making it suitable for non-model species in which transformation methodss are not yet established. We anticipate that this imaging platform will substantially accelerate mechanistic studies of fertilization and embryo development through its application to diverse mutants and pharmacological perturbations, and will support applied and evolutionary research on reproductive strategies and breeding programs in agriculturally important plant species.
Yuga Hanaki,et al. (2025) A simple and versatile plasma membrane staining method for visualizing living cell morphology in reproductive tissues across diverse plant species Plant Methods 21 (1) doi:10.1186/s13007-025-01465-7
Biology & Life sciences
