LIU LAB
@
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
plant and fungal cells organize their cytoplasmic
contents. We use microscopic and imaging
tools to watch how cells divide and increase their sizes. 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.
People in
the Laboratory:
Dedicated
Graduate Students:
Miss Kimmy Ho (B.S.,
Miss Tracy Zeng (B.S.,
University of California-Davis)
Determined
postdoctoral scientists:
Dr. Takashi Hotta (Ph.D.,
Dr.
Dr. Julie Lee (Ph.D.,
Devoted
technician:
Ms.
Dependable
undergraduate students:
Mr. Vincent Chu
Miss Allison Gaudinier
Miss Lindsay Kiyama
A Picture
from Our Experiments:
This is a rice cell undergoing cell division. Daughter nuclei were labeled in blue,
microtubules in red, and one of our favorite kinesins
(a class of motor proteins) in green.
This OsPAKRP1 kinesin (or OsKinesin-12A) was
discovered in 2203 LSA in 2000.
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:
Kim, J.-M., L. Lu, R. Shao, J. Chin, and B. Liu. 2006. Mutations
that bypass the requirement of the septation
initiation network for septum formation and conidiation
in Aspergillus
nidulans. Genetics. 173:685-696.
Lee, Y.-R.J., Y. Li, and B. Liu. 2007. Two homologous phragmoplast-associated kinesins
play a critical role in cytokinesis during male gametogenesis in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell.
19:2595-2605.
Lee, Y.-R.J., and B. Liu. 2007. Cytoskeletal motor
proteins in plant cell division. In Plant Cell Monographs: Cell Division
Control in Plants. D.P.S. Verma and Z. Hong, editors. Springer,
Bisgrove S.R., Y.-R. J. Lee, B. Liu, N. Peters, and D.L. Kropf. 2008. The microtubule plus-end binding protein EB1
functions in root responses to touch and gravity signals in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 20: 396–410.
Guo*, L., C.-M. Ho*, Z. Kong*, Y.-R.J. Lee*, Q. Qian, and B. Liu.
2009. Evaluating the microtubule cytoskeleton and its interacting proteins in
monocots by mining the rice genome. Annals
Bot. 103: 387–402.
Kim, J.-M., C.T. Zeng, T. Nayak, R. Shao, A. Huang, B.R. Oakley, and B.
Liu. 2009. Timely septation requires SNAD-dependent
spindle pole body localization of the septation
initiation network components in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Mol.
Biol. Cell, in press.
Zeng, C.T., Y.-R.J. Lee, and Liu, B. 2009. The WD-40 repeat
protein NEDD1 plays a critical role in microtubule organization during mitotic
cell division in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell, in press.