I am organizing a concurrent session “Cellular reprogramming and organ regeneration” at #ICAR2026 together with @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social!
Submit your abstract by Feb 22 (for oral) and share your exciting science with us🌿
icar2026.sg
We’re hiring! 🌱
Open positions in my lab for candidates interested in cambium development in Arabidopsis, hybrid aspen, or silver birch. Apply now! Please repost! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...
9/ Thanks to our funders: Formas, The Novo Nordisk Foundation, @erc.europa.eu and @kawresearch.bsky.social for making this research possible!
8/ A huge collaborative effort from the SLU side and Yka Helariutta’s group @helsinki.fi. Including Ming Feng, Amrit Nanda, Frauke Augstein, Ai Zhang, Lihua Zhao, Nilam Malankar, Sam van Es, Bernhard Blob, Shamik Mazumdar, Jung-Ok Heo, Pawel Roszak and Jinbo Hu
7/ We propose that ZATs integrate internal developmental and external environmental cues such as salinity to modify cell death responses and regulate developmental plasticity
6/ Finally, we found that salinity repressed ZAT expression! Mutating ZATs enhanced salinity tolerance, whereas mutating expanins decreased salinity tolerance, probably by modifying xylem gap formation that helps plants cope with salinity.
5/ A transcriptome analysis of higher order mutants revealed many cell wall related genes were differentially expressed, including 10 expansin genes that were repressed by the ZAT14 family.
4/ We found a master regulator of xylem differentiation, VND7, positively regulated the ZAT14 family to promote xylem differentiation, whereas PLETHORA transcription factors downregulated ZATs to keep their expression out of the root meristem.
3/ Single mutants showed no phenotypes, but double, triple and quadruple mutants perturbed vascular patterns and cell death in root caps. The expression of ZAT14 family members in tissues undergoing cell death, or cell enucleation, suggested they might play a role in death priming.
2/ Using a grafting dataset (www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...), we identified a group of four closely related ZAT transcription factors expressed in the xylem, phloem and lateral root cap.
“The ZAT14 family promotes cell death and regulates expansins to affect xylem formation and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis”. Now out in @theplantcell.bsky.social led by Ming Feng and colleagues. A 🌱 thread 👇 1/x
academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...
Only a few days left to apply!
My group is looking for a postdoc to engineer and deploy new tools to precisely manipulate and decode how auxin coordinates plant morphogenesis.
@starmorph-syg.bsky.social
Research Associate - Reprogramming Development (closes 7 October 2025)
Plants are constantly under attack in nature But what determines whether they choose to defend themselves or heal their tissue? Charles Melnyk is conducting groundbreaking molecular research to understand their strategies
#research #science #plantscience @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social
shorturl.at/1jZ5W
Our new paper is out!
1/14 How does an organ rebuild its shape after injury? It's not just about making new cells, but aligning them in the right direction — like bricks shaping a structure. We show that it's all driven by Cell Geometry!
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Plant Science Research Weekly -- The hidden power of water in plant regeneration (Nature Plants) @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social (Summary by Ching Chan) buff.ly/9quikax
#PlantaePSRW
Following herbivory, a plant releases volatiles that trigger jasmonate signaling in nearby plants. This leads to a change in the soil bacteria, which subsequently promotes growth, defense and yield in subsequent plants.
Plant Science Research Weekly: July 18, 2025 plantae.org/plant-scienc... (3/3) The hidden power of water in plant regeneration; ; Unusual cell death pathway in maize endosperm; Herbivore bites promote plant growth in the succeeding year. @matthiaserb.bsky.social @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social
Please spread the word: Position in plant development @umeaplantsciencecentre.se
Looking forward to having a new colleague!
www.upsc.se/jobs/6590-as...
Interesting! Probably a piece of the Che was left on and grew back. Much less likely but maybe something chimeric or a hybrid? Chimeras have been seen in orange before (the Bizzarria). Have a look at these reviews:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
9/n. A collaborative effort with Abdul Kareem, Anna van Wüllen, Ai Zhang, Gabriel Walckiers and Ellen Fasth. A huge thanks to our funders @erc.europa.eu, @kawresearch.bsky.social and @vetenskapsradet.bsky.social for supporting and enabling this research!
8/n. An interesting outcome of this work is that high water availability is really good at regenerating roots and promoting in vitro regeneration (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20230752). If you want to improve your in vitro regeneration rates, try using lower agar concentrations in your media.
7/n. What’s the relevance of this? We used air layering (www.rhs.org.uk/propagation/...) in tomato and found wet soil induced roots but dry soil induced callus. Thus, when wounds are in contact with water, roots form (think of plant propagation!) whereas under dry conditions, callus seals the wound
6/n. High water promoted ethylene and jasmonic acid responses, and these hormones could shift the auxin maxima away from the wound likely via PIN transporters. Thus, high water induced ethylene and jasmonic acid to change PIN localisation and move auxin maxima away from the wound to promote rooting
5/n. We found that water moved the auxin response maxima at the wound either away (distal) or towards (proximal) the cut. Distal response was associated with root formation while proximal response with callus formation. So the location of auxin response could induce different regeneration fates.
4/n. What decides whether a wound forms roots or callus? Water! By changing water availability, we could transition between these two fates. High water promoted roots near the wound, whereas low water promoted callus formation at the wound. These processes seemed to antagonise one another
3/n. Roots formed at wounds follow a lateral root formation pathway (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24642937) but what about callus from wounds? We used reporters and mutants to find that callus follows a procambium pathway suggesting that different regeneration fates used different molecular pathways.
2/n. Regeneration is fundamental for plant survival but how do plants know what to regenerate? We sought to address this question using cut Arabidopsis petioles that can either form roots, callus or both at the site of wounding
How do plants decide the fate of a wound and what to regenerate? Water availability! Abdul Kareem and colleagues show that regeneration outcomes after tissue cutting are controlled by water. A 🧵/n 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Beautiful work showing opposing gradients of gases activates regeneration in wounded Arabidopsis roots. Congrats to all authors! Some interesting future questions raised regarding aerial tissues and non-Arabidopsis. How do they activate regeneration? Next big questions for the field.
Congratulations to all winners and finalists for their amazing science and excellent talks! I'm very pleased to be part of this group of scientists, and thankful to @mplantpcom.bsky.social for this award!
Just like in Fashion - trends are also returning in #PlantScience.
ATM, Grafting is coming back!
Two recent reviews were dedicated to it:
First, Augstein & @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Then, @fritz-kragler.bsky.social & Bock:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...