10月26日に富士高校の学生さんが、遺伝研にフィールドワークで来られました。午前中は講義、午後は研究室見学をしていただきました。熱心に聞き入り、反応のよい学生さんもいて、将来の研究者が一人でも育ってくれればと願います。
説明する北野と聞き入る学生さん
続きを読む
高等植物の花成（栄養成長から生殖成長への移行）は、主に春化経路、日長反応性経路、構成的促進経路といった遺伝子ネットワークにより制御されています。春化経路は低温に応答して、日長反応性経路は日長に感応して、花成を誘導する機構です。一方、構成的促進経路は環境要因に影響を受けない花成制御機構です。コムギやオオムギなどムギ類の出穂性（花成）は、これらの経路に対応した低温要求性、日長反応性、純粋早晩性の3つの出穂性形質の複合作用により決定されます。今回、村井班では、コムギの日長反応性には、機能分化した２種類のCONSTANS -like遺伝子（WCO1とTaHd1）が関与していることを明らかにしました。特に、WCO1は、長日条件下では花成を促進する方向に作用しますが、短日条件下では、強力に花成を抑制する方向に働く、ユニークな遺伝子であることが示唆されました。今後、村井班では、これら花成関連遺伝子とミトコンドリアゲノムとの「ゲノム・遺伝子相関」機構を明らかにしていく予定です。
Kitagawa et al. GGS (2012).pdf
11-12 December 2012Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
I am pleased to let you know about the Japan-Australia Symposium on Plant Science for Agriculture and hope you can consider attending this exciting event. Topics include crop improvement, forest health, plant resources, and biosecurity. This symposium will feature scientists from Australia and Japan and aims to foster an atmosphere of positive and friendly exchange, strengthening the international linkage and sharing of knowledge between the two countries. We especially encourage graduate students to attend and take advantage of this opportunity to showcase their own research.
For more information, see the official website:
Organised by:
Derek Goto (Hokkaido University)
Mike Jones (Murdoch University)
Supported by:
Murdoch University, School of Biological Sciences
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas
Australian Society of Plant Scientists
Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists
Derek has just come back from Australia, where he gave two presentations on the research carried out within this project and promoting the Correlative Gene System funding group overseas.
The first was an invited seminar in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia) on 21 September. There is a lot of great plant research happening at the Uni of Queensland and there was strong interest in our discoveries on the mechanisms for root-knot nematode infection. Many enjoyable discussions with people in both Biol Sciences and Agriculture, also found out from
Susanne Schmidt that root-knot nematodes are a major problem in sugarcane, an important industry for Queensland. Thanks to
Milos Tanurdzic for the invite!
Next stop was Adelaide for the
ComBio2012 meeting, one of the biggest biological sciences meetings in Australia. The good news was that our abstract got selected for one of the oral presentations so I had a chance to showcase our research to a broader audience among the Australian scientific community - after the good feedback now its time to start writing the paper and getting it published!!!
04-06 August 2012
We organised a really fun scientific outreach event for school kids in cooperation with the Furano Board of Education.
Furano is a major agricultural region in central Hokkaido, about 3hrs drive from Sapporo. The purpose was not only to raise interest in science in school kids but also to build stronger community links between our Faculty of Agriculture and local communities in important local country areas.
During the two-day camp, the school kids looked up information about their local agricultural industry and did some great hand-made presentations that they explained in English. Each group then designed their own special curry consisting of Furano vegetables and we had a big taste-test with International Students joining the groups and giving the kdis a great chance to interact with foreign cultures while realising scientists are normal people at the same time!
For more information, check out our lab website:
