@
College of
Biological Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-DAVIS
2203 LIFE SCIENCES
Telephone: (530) 754-8139
FAX: (530) 752-5410
We are cell biologists aiming to learn how plants
and fungi build their cells and organize their cytoplasmic contents. We use microscopic and imaging tools to watch
how cells divide and enlarge themselves.
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 serious graduate
students and undergraduate students.
If you are interested in traveling into plant and fungal cells, please
contact Dr. Bo Liu, the
principal investigator, at bliu@ucdavis.edu. You are invited to visit the laboratory in
Green Hall 2203 or talk to Dr. Liu at (530) 754-8138. Recent findings are summarized in the posters
presented outside the laboratory.
People
in the Laboratory:
Determined
research scientist:
Dr. Yuh-Ru Julie Lee
(Ph.D., University of Georgia, Athens, GA)
Dedicated
Graduate students:
Mr. Calvin H. Huang
(B.S., University of California, Davis, CA)
Mr. Huan (Howard) Huo
(B.S., Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China)
Ms. Man Kei Constance Tse (B.S., Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK SAR, China)
Dependable
undergraduate students:
Mr. Yuchen Liu
Mr. Yibo
Shi
Ms. Qilei Hu
Mr. Andrew Chen
Celebrating Graduation (Junlin, Cher and Felicia) in 2017
Two
years later in 2019, a reunion of now four graduate students (Junlin, Cher, Felicia and Calvin):
A
Picture from Our Experiments:
This is an Arabidopsis cell undergoing cell
division. Segregated sister chromatids
are labeled in blue, microtubules in red, and the microtubule-associated
protein MAP65-3 in green. Dr. C.-M.
Kimmy Ho devoted much of her dissertation to understanding the function of
MAP65-3 in cytokinesis. The human
counterpart of MAP65-3 is called PRC1 which also is required for cell
division. Dr. Ho
is assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica now. Her laboratory is
devoted to understanding inter-organelle communication as well as symmetric and
asymmetric cell divisions in flowering plants.
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:
Liu,
B., C.-M. K. Ho, and Y.-R.J. Lee. 2011. Microtubule reorganization during
mitosis and cytokinesis: lessons learned from developing microgametophytes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Front.
Plant Sci. 2:27. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2011.00027
Ho*,
C.-M.K., T. Hotta*, Z. Kong*, C.T. Zeng*, J. Sun, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu.
2011. Augmin plays a critical role in organizing the spindle and phragmoplast
microtubule arrays in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell.
23:2606–2618. (* equal contributions)
Ho,
C.-M.K., T. Hotta, F. Guo, R. Roberson, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2011.
Interaction of anti-parallel microtubules in the phragmoplast is mediated by
the microtubule-associated protein MAP65-3 in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell.
23:2909–2923.
Hotta,
T., Z. Kong, C.M.K. Ho, C.J.T. Zeng, T. Horio, S. Fong, T. Vuong, Y.R.J. Lee,
and B. Liu. 2012. Characterization of the Arabidopsis augmin complex uncovers
its critical function in the assembly of the acentrosomal spindle and
phragmoplast microtubule arrays. Plant Cell.
24:1494-1509.
Ho,
C.-M.K., Y.R.J. Lee, L.D. Kiyama, S.P. Dinesh-Kumar, and B. Liu. 2012.
Arabidopsis microtubule-associated protein MAP65-3 cross-links anti-parallel
microtubules toward their plus ends in the phragmoplast via its distinct
C-terminal microtubule-binding domain. Plant
Cell. 24:2071-2085.
Liu,
B. 2013. Microtubule disassembly: when a sleeper is activated. Current
Biology, 23: R932-933.
Lee,
Y.-R.J. and B. Liu. 2013. The rise and fall of the phragmoplast microtubule
array. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 16:757–763.
Zeng,
C.T., H.R. Kim, I. Vargus Arispuro, J.-M. Kim, A.-C. Huang, and B. Liu. 2014.
Microtubule plus end-tracking proteins play critical roles in directional
growth of hyphae by regulating the dynamics of cytoplasmic microtubules in Aspergillus nidulans. Mol Microbiol. 94 (3):506-521.
Liu,
T., J. Tian, G. Wang, Y. Yu, C. Wang, Y. Ma, X. Zhang, G. Xia, B. Liu, Z. Kong.
2014. Augmin triggers microtubule-dependent microtubule nucleation in
interphase plant cells. Current
Biology. 24:2708-2713.
Kong,
Z., M. Ioki, S. Braybrook, S. Li, R. Zhong, Z. Ye, Y.-R.J. Lee, T. Hotta, A.
Chang, J. Tian, G. Wang, and B. Liu. 2015. Kinesin-4 functions in vesicular
transport on cortical microtubules and regulates cell wall mechanics during
cell elongation in plants. Molecular
Plant. 8(7):1011-1023.
Wang,
B., K. Li , M. Jin, R. Qiu, B. Liu, B.R. Oakley, and
X. Xiang. 2015. The Aspergillus nidulans
bimC4 mutation provides an excellent tool for identification of kinesin-14
inhibitors. Fungal
Genet. Biol. 82:51-55.
Lee,
Y.-R.J., W. Qiu, and B. Liu. 2015. Kinesin motors in plants: from subcellular
dynamics to motility regulation. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 28:120-126.
Lee,
Y.-R. J., and B. Liu. 2016. Cytokinesis. In Plant Cell Biology, S. Assmann, B.
Liu (eds.). Springer, New York. DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-7881-2_9-1
Citovsky,
V., and B. Liu. 2017. Myosin-driven transport network in plants is functionally
robust and distinctive. Proc
Natl Acad Sci U S A. 114 (8):1756–1758. pii:
201700184. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1700184114. PMID: 28179563
Li*, H.,
B. Sun*, M. Sasabe, X. Deng, Y. Machida, H. Lin, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2017.
Arabidopsis MAP65-4 plays a role in phragmoplast microtubule organization and
marks the cortical cell division site. New
Phytologist. 215(1):187-201.
Lv*,
S., H. Miao*, M. Luo, Y. Li, Q. Wang, Y.-R. J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2017. CAPPI: a
Cytoskeleton-based localization Assay reports Protein-Protein Interaction in
living cells by fluorescence microscopy. Molecular
Plant. 10 (11), 1473–1476.
Lee,
Y.-R. J., Y. Hiwatashi, T. Hotta, T. Xie, J. Doonan, and B. Liu. 2017. The
mitotic function of augmin is dependent on its microtubule-associated protein
subunit EDE1 in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Current
Biology. 27:3891-3897.
Tseng,
K.-F., P. Wang, Y.-R. J. Lee, J. Bowen, A.M. Gicking, L. Guo, B. Liu, and W.
Qiu. 2018. The preprophase band-associated kinesin-14 OsKCH2 is a processive
minus-end-directed microtubule motor. Nature
Communications, 9(1):1067.
Zhang*,
H., X. Deng*, B. Sun, S. Van, Z. Kang, H. Lin, Y.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2018. Role
of the BUB3 protein in phragmoplast microtubule reorganization during
cytokinesis. Nature Plants,
4:485–494.
Lee,
Y.-R.J. and B. Liu. 2019. Microtubule nucleation for the assembly of
acentrosomal microtubule arrays in plant cells.
New
Phytologist. 222:1705-1718. doi.org/10.1111/nph.15705
Boruc*,
J., X. Deng*, E. Mylle, N. Besbrugge, M. Van Durme, D. Demidov, E. Tomastikova,
C. T.-R. Tan, M. Vandorpe, D. Eeckhout, T. Beeckman, M. Nowack, G. De Jaeger,
H. Lin, B. Liu#, and D. Van Damme#.
2019. The TPX2Like protein 3 is the primary activator of a-Aurora kinases and essential for embryogenesis. Plant Physiology,
180:1389–1405. PMID: 31097675 DOI: 10.1104/pp.18.01515
Miao,
H., R. Guo, J. Chen, Q. Wang, Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2019. The g-tubulin complex protein GCP6 is crucial for spindle morphogenesis but
not essential for microtubule reorganization in Arabidopsis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 116 (52):27115-27123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912240116
Xu,
J., Y.-R.J. Lee, and B. Liu. 2020. Establishment of a
mitotic model system by transient expression of the D-type cyclin in
differentiated leaf cells of tobacco (Nicotiana
benthamiana). New
Phytologist. 226(4):1213-1220. doi.org/10.1111/nph.16309
Liu, B. and X. Guo. 2021. Disarming PI(4,5)P2
in the plasma membrane. Nature Plants. 7(5):552-553. doi:
10.1038/s41477-021-00902-4
Liu, B., and Y.-R.J. Lee. 2022. Spindle assembly and
mitosis in plants. Annual Review of Plant Biology. 73:227-254. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-arplant-070721-084258
Hotta*,
T., Y.-R.J. Lee*, T. Higaki, T. Hashimoto, and B. Liu. 2022. Two Kinesin‐14A
motors oligomerize to drive poleward microtubule convergence for acentrosomal
spindle morphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana. Front.
Cell Dev. Biol. 10:949345.
doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.949345
Koenig AM, Liu B, Hu
J. 2023. Visualizing the dynamics of plant energy organelles. Biochem Soc Trans. 2023 Dec 20;51(6):2029-2040. doi:
10.1042/BST20221093. PMID: 37975429; PMCID: PMC10754284.
Deng, X., Y. He, X. Tang, X. Liu, Y.-R.J. Lee, B. Liu, and
H. Lin. 2024. A Co-adapted KNL1 and spindle assembly checkpoint axis
orchestrates precise mitosis in Arabidopsis. PNAS.
121(2):e2316583121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316583121.
Deng, X., F. Peng, X. Tang, S., Y.J. Lee, H. Lin, and B.
Liu. 2024. The Arabidopsis BUB1/MAD3 family protein BMF3 requires BUB3.3 to
recruit CDC20 to kinetochores in spindle assembly checkpoint signaling. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 121 (12) e2322677121.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322677121