A Functional Link between Mitochondria and the Cell Wall in Stress Responses

Highlighted Author Profile

Zhubing Hu

Highlighted Paper: Challa et al et al. (2016). Mitochondrial Defects Confer Tolerance against Cellulose Deficiency. Plant Cell. Advance Publication August 31, 2016; doi:10.1105/tpc.16.00540.

Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow, VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University.

Education: PhD: Plant biology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing.

Non-scientific Interests: Badminton, hiking, PC games.

After graduating with a B.S, I pursued my master's degree in Prof. Dr. Zhenguo Shen's lab at Nanjing Agricultural University to investigate the mechanisms by which plants cope with heavy metal stress, aiming to develop heavy metal hyper-accumulating plants for phytoremediation. Thanks to excellent scientific training and activated curiosity in Shen's lab, I was lucky to join Prof. Dr. Yuxin Hu (Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science) to accept my second scientific PhD training. During this PhD stage, my project was to identify novel components controlling plant organ size through a genetic screen. Four-and-a-half-years of patient guidance from Prof. Hu have raised me up as a well-trained researcher. From 2010 to 2012, my ability to develop simple and efficient methods to conduct experiments was dramatically improved in the lab of Prof. Dr. Jing Li (Northwest A&F University, China). At the end of 2012, I joined the cell cycle group led by Prof. De Veylder (Gent University - VIB) to explore the signaling networks controlling cell division in response to environmental stresses. Through a phenotype-based compound screening approach, a novel compound (C17) interfering with cell division was isolated. Benefiting from my previous trainings in the three laboratories mentioned above, I rapidly obtained tens of mutants mutated at cellulose synthase and mitochondrial editing genes that exhibited C17 tolerance. The common property of these mutants demonstrated that plants with defective mitochondria perform better against cellulose deficiency, indicating a link between the cell wall and mitochondria, something hardly studied before. The recurring question "What is the benefit for plants holding this signaling mechanism?" from Prof. De Veylder prompted me to put this concept into the context of stresses, demonstrating a novel mechanism for plant adaptation. I am deeply grateful to Prof. De Veylder, who offered me the opportunity to work in this fantastic lab and broaden my horizons in plant research. At the end of September 2016, I will start my own laboratory at College of Life Science, Nanjing Agricultural University. My laboratory will focus on signaling networks maintaining the integrity of the plant genome and cell wall under stresses.