@
College of
Biological Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-DAVIS
2203 LIFE SCIENCES
Telephone: (530) 754-8139
FAX: (530) 752-5410
Our laboratory is located in room 2203 of the Life
Sciences building. Our team works on how
plants and fungi build their cells and organize their cytoplasmic
contents. We use microscopic and imaging
tools to watch how cells divide and enlarge themselves. People in the laboratory also routinely carry
out experiments of protein biochemistry, molecular biology, as well as
classical and molecular genetics. We
have open positions for graduate
students and undergraduate students.
If you are interested in traveling into plant and fungal cells, please
contact Dr. Bo Liu, the
principal investigator, at bliu@ucdavis.edu. You are invited to visit the laboratory or
talk to Dr. Liu at (530) 754-8138.
Recent results are summarized in the posters presented outside the
laboratory.
People
in the Laboratory:
Determined
research scientist:
Dr. Yuh-Ru Julie Lee
(Ph.D., University of Georgia, Athens, GA)
Dedicated
Graduate students:
Ms. M. Ximena Anleu Gil
(B.A., Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA)
Mr. Xiaojiang
Guo (B.S., Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China)
Mr. Calvin H. Huang
(B.S., University of California, Davis, CA)
Mr. Huan (Howard) Huo
(B.S., Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China)
Dependable
undergraduate students:
Ms. Ashley Beck
Mr. Eduardo Hernandez
Ramirez
Ms. Jihye Yoon
Celebrating Graduation (Junlin, Cher and Felicia) in 2017
Two
years later in 2019, a reunion of now four graduate students (Junlin, Cher, Felicia and Calvin)
A
Picture from Our Experiments:
This is an Arabidopsis
cell undergoing cell division.
Segregated sister chromatids are labeled in blue, microtubules in red,
and the microtubule-associated protein MAP65-3 in green. Dr. C.-M. Kimmy Ho devoted much of her
dissertation to understanding the function of MAP65-3 in cytokinesis. The human counterpart of MAP65-3 is called
PRC1 which also is required for cell division.
Dr. Ho
is assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica now. Her laboratory is
devoted to understanding inter-organelle communication as well as symmetric and
asymmetric cell divisions in flowering plants.
An
Example of the Organisms We Are Working On:
These are images of colonies of the filamentous
fungus Aspergillus nidulans. This fungus is one of the model organisms
used for classical genetic studies of fundamental biological processes like the
cell cycle. The yellow color was given
by the asexual conidial spores produced on the surface of the colonies. The images were taken from identical plates
incubated at different temperatures indicated on the left. The strain to the left was a control one which
demonstrated a typical growth phenomenon.
The middle and right ones were mutants which had problems in nuclear
migration. It has been demonstrated by
many scientists that the mechanism for nuclear migration in this fungus is very
similar to that regulating nuclear migration during fertilization and in brain
development in mammals.
Recent
Publications:
Liu,
B., C.-M. K. Ho, and Y.-R.J. Lee. 2011. Microtubule reorganization during
mitosis and cytokinesis: lessons learned from developing microgametophytes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Front.
Plant Sci. 2:27. doi:
10.3389/fpls.2011.00027
Ho*,
C.-M.K., T. Hotta*, Z. Kong*, C.T. Zeng*, J. Sun, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu.
2011. Augmin plays a critical role in organizing the
spindle and phragmoplast microtubule arrays in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell.
23:2606–2618. (* equal contributions)
Ho,
C.-M.K., T. Hotta, F. Guo, R. Roberson, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2011.
Interaction of anti-parallel microtubules in the phragmoplast is mediated by
the microtubule-associated protein MAP65-3 in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell.
23:2909–2923.
Hotta,
T., Z. Kong, C.M.K. Ho, C.J.T. Zeng, T. Horio, S.
Fong, T. Vuong, Y.R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2012. Characterization of the
Arabidopsis augmin complex uncovers its critical
function in the assembly of the acentrosomal spindle and phragmoplast
microtubule arrays. Plant Cell.
24:1494-1509.
Ho,
C.-M.K., Y.R.J. Lee, L.D. Kiyama, S.P. Dinesh-Kumar,
and B. Liu. 2012. Arabidopsis microtubule-associated protein MAP65-3
cross-links anti-parallel microtubules toward their plus ends in the
phragmoplast via its distinct C-terminal microtubule-binding domain. Plant Cell.
24:2071-2085.
Liu,
B. 2013. Microtubule disassembly: when a sleeper is activated. Current
Biology, 23: R932-933.
Lee,
Y.-R.J. and B. Liu. 2013. The rise and fall of the phragmoplast microtubule
array. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 16:757–763.
Zeng,
C.T., H.R. Kim, I. Vargus Arispuro,
J.-M. Kim, A.-C. Huang, and B. Liu. 2014. Microtubule plus end-tracking
proteins play critical roles in directional growth of hyphae by regulating the
dynamics of cytoplasmic microtubules in Aspergillus
nidulans. Mol Microbiol.
94 (3):506-521.
Liu,
T., J. Tian, G. Wang, Y. Yu, C. Wang, Y. Ma, X. Zhang, G. Xia, B. Liu, Z. Kong.
2014. Augmin triggers microtubule-dependent
microtubule nucleation in interphase plant cells. Current
Biology. 24:2708-2713.
Kong,
Z., M. Ioki, S. Braybrook, S. Li, R. Zhong, Z. Ye,
Y.-R.J. Lee, T. Hotta, A. Chang, J. Tian, G. Wang, and B. Liu. 2015. Kinesin-4
functions in vesicular transport on cortical microtubules and regulates cell
wall mechanics during cell elongation in plants. Molecular
Plant. 8(7):1011-1023.
Wang,
B., K. Li , M. Jin, R. Qiu, B. Liu, B.R. Oakley, and X. Xiang. 2015. The Aspergillus nidulans
bimC4 mutation provides an excellent tool for identification of kinesin-14
inhibitors. Fungal
Genet. Biol. 82:51-55.
Lee,
Y.-R.J., W. Qiu, and B. Liu. 2015. Kinesin motors in plants: from subcellular
dynamics to motility regulation. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 28:120-126.
Lee,
Y.-R. J., and B. Liu. 2016. Cytokinesis. In Plant Cell Biology, S. Assmann, B.
Liu (eds.). Springer, New York. DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-7881-2_9-1
Citovsky,
V., and B. Liu. 2017. Myosin-driven transport network in plants is functionally
robust and distinctive. Proc
Natl Acad Sci U S A. 114 (8):1756–1758. pii: 201700184. doi:
10.1073/pnas.1700184114. PMID: 28179563
Li*,
H., B. Sun*, M. Sasabe, X. Deng, Y. Machida, H. Lin, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu.
2017. Arabidopsis MAP65-4 plays a role in phragmoplast microtubule organization
and marks the cortical cell division site.
New
Phytologist. 215(1):187-201.
Lv*, S., H. Miao*, M. Luo, Y. Li, Q. Wang, Y.-R. J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2017.
CAPPI: a Cytoskeleton-based localization Assay reports Protein-Protein
Interaction in living cells by fluorescence microscopy. Molecular
Plant. 10 (11), 1473–1476.
Lee,
Y.-R. J., Y. Hiwatashi, T. Hotta, T. Xie, J. Doonan, and B. Liu. 2017. The
mitotic function of augmin is dependent on its
microtubule-associated protein subunit EDE1 in Arabidopsis thaliana. Current
Biology. 27:3891-3897.
Tseng,
K.-F., P. Wang, Y.-R. J. Lee, J. Bowen, A.M. Gicking,
L. Guo, B. Liu, and W. Qiu. 2018. The preprophase band-associated kinesin-14
OsKCH2 is a processive minus-end-directed microtubule motor. Nature
Communications, 9(1):1067.
Zhang*,
H., X. Deng*, B. Sun, S. Van, Z. Kang, H. Lin, Y.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2018. Role
of the BUB3 protein in phragmoplast microtubule reorganization during
cytokinesis. Nature Plants,
4:485–494.
Lee,
Y.-R.J. and B. Liu. 2019. Microtubule nucleation for the assembly of
acentrosomal microtubule arrays in plant cells.
New
Phytologist. 222:1705-1718. doi.org/10.1111/nph.15705
Boruc*,
J., X. Deng*, E. Mylle, N. Besbrugge, M. Van Durme,
D. Demidov, E. Tomastikova, C. T.-R. Tan, M. Vandorpe, D. Eeckhout, T.
Beeckman, M. Nowack, G. De Jaeger, H. Lin, B. Liu#, and D. Van Damme#.
2019. The TPX2Like protein 3 is the primary activator of a-Aurora kinases and essential for embryogenesis. Plant Physiology,
180:1389–1405. PMID: 31097675 DOI: 10.1104/pp.18.01515
Miao,
H., R. Guo, J. Chen, Q. Wang, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2019. The g-tubulin complex protein GCP6 is crucial for spindle morphogenesis but
not essential for microtubule reorganization in Arabidopsis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U
S A 116 (52):27115-27123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912240116
Xu,
J., Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2020. Establishment of a
mitotic model system by transient expression of the D-type cyclin in
differentiated leaf cells of tobacco (Nicotiana
benthamiana). New Phytologist. 226(4):1213-1220. doi.org/10.1111/nph.16309