Priming and memory of temperature-induced stress responses and morphogenesis: role of nuclear organization and epigenetic inheritance

Prof. Dr. Daniel Schubert

Uni- and multicellular organisms perceive environmental ambient temperature as a cue for growth and development or extreme temperature as a stressful event. Non-detrimental temperature stress can be perceived by plants and algae as a priming cue to create a memory to become more resistant to subsequent extreme temperature stress. We and others have revealed that temperature-mediated priming is beneficial for multicellular plant and unicellular algae development. We have recently discovered that the memory relies at least in part on epigenetic gene regulation and changes in nuclear organization. One focus of the lab is on regulators of nuclear and chromatin organization and how they contribute to stress memory. Most of the factors are highly conserved and temperature-dependent function may rely on phase separation properties of the proteins and contribute to temperature sensing. Another focus is on heat stress memory in the unicellular acido- and thermophilic algal model Cyanidioschyzon merolae which shows mitotically-stable inheritance of the stress-activated state. With its ultrasmall genome that contains a large set of chromatin regulatory genes in single copy, C. merolae is a fantastic model to comprehensively elucidate stress memory phenomena in eukaryotes. In the doctoral project, you will combine (epi)genetics and –genomics, single cell analyses and superresolution imaging to dissect heat stress memory in C. merolae.

For more information visit the website of the Plant Epigenetics Group at FU Berlin. 

© Daniel Schubert