HKU Distinguished Lecture by Mok Hing Yiu Distinguished Visiting Professor: Coding and Decoding of Calcium Signals in Plant Growth and Defense

 

Specificity in cell signaling is paramount to plant responses to specific environmental changes. Although calcium is a ubiquitous messenger in plant responses to numerous signals, the mechanism of signal-response specificity remains unclear. Studies in the past four decades in both animal and plant cell models have established the “calcium signature” concept that depicts a distinct calcium change in response to each specific signal. How a calcium signature is encoded by calcium transporters and channels working together and decoded by calcium sensors and their targets represent exciting but challenging questions in the field. The Luan lab has been working on both encoding and decoding mechanisms for the past 25 years. They have made several breakthroughs on calcium encoding mechanisms, including the identification of calcium channels responsible for calcium spiking in pollen tube growth, pollen tube reception, and immune responses. They also pioneered studies on the “decoding” process by identifying the Ca-CBL-CIPK signaling network that regulates nutrient sensing and homeostasis in plants. Professor Luan will summarise these research findings to provide a conceptual framework for calcium signalling mechanisms in plants.