Mary Tierney
University of Vermont, VT·Plant Science & Agriculture
A plant's outer cell membrane, the plasma membrane, holds proteins that control growth. These include pumps that move protons, proteins that build the new wall between dividing cells, transporters that bring in water and nutrients, and receptors that sense the environment.
- Fields
Plant Science & Agriculture
Biology
Biochemistry
- Topics
plant cell biology
membrane trafficking
endosomal recycling
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2030
What they work on
- Compare the proteins that make up and associate with the Retriever recycling complex in Arabidopsis thaliana and the moss Physcomitrium patens, using proximity labeling from the subunits VPS29, VPS26C, and CCDC22.
- Identify the plant proteins that form the COMMD scaffolding complex in a moss and a flowering plant, and separate partners shared by both species from species-specific ones.
- Test whether Retriever and its conserved partner proteins have kept deeply conserved cell functions that affect plant growth and development, focusing on partners found in both species.
- Identify which plasma membrane proteins Retriever recycles, and determine how this recycling controls cell wall organization and growth in response to developmental and environmental signals in intact plants.
More about the research
Cells often control these proteins by pulling them inside and then recycling them back to the surface. In humans, a protein machine called the Retriever complex handles much of this recycling, but it is poorly understood in plants.
Why it matters
This basic research would show how plants recycle the membrane proteins that take up water and nutrients and that sense their surroundings. Because these proteins shape growth and cell walls, the knowledge could eventually inform work on plant growth and health, including how plants resist environmental and disease-related stress, which matters for agriculture.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kyaw Aung
Iowa State University, IA·Plant Science & Agriculture·Early-career
Test whether HPCA1, a hydrogen peroxide sensor, functions at plasmodesmata, the channels linking neighboring plant cells, to regulate hydrogen peroxide movement in Arabidopsis thaliana, using genetics and cell biology.
DurreShahwar Muhammad
University of Massachusetts, MA·Biology·Early-career
Identify and characterize the proteins acted on by LON2, a peroxisomal protein that refolds and degrades other proteins, including substrates that promote pexophagy (peroxisome destruction) in Arabidopsis.
Federica Brandizzi
Michigan State University, MI·Biology
Determine how IRE1, the most conserved UPR sensor and both a protein kinase and an RNA-cutting enzyme, drives protein phosphorylation changes that support growth and relieve ER stress in Arabidopsis.
The school
University of Vermont: 16 labs on PI Pages, $246M a year on research, 76 research doctorates a year.
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