Research Area

 Plant organs express unique and overlapping sets of mRNAs, such differential

gene expression provides the bases for plant development and specialization of

function. A productive approach to a molecular investigation of plant development

has been the isolation and characterization of organ- and tissue-specific genes.

My research is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanism involved in root

development. Root development involves strategies that are common to the

development of all plant organs, as well as certain aspects that are unique to

roots. We have isolated a number of root-specific cDNA clones from bean

seedling root cDNA library by differential screening. Clues to biological role of

predicted protein are available from study of gene expression pattern and protein

localization by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical analysis. We are

also interested in the molecular mechanism involved in cell division during petal

protoplast culture of petunia. Several proteins involved in the first cell division

have been investigated by two-dimensional SDS-PAGE. Genes involved in the

cell division are also being screened and characterized by Expression Sequence

Tagging(EST) procedure