PhD in Environmental modulation of protein mobility in land plants

at  Wageningen University Research

YOU WILL WORK HERE

The research is embedded within the Plant Developmental Biology Cluster, which links the Molecular Biology (MOB) and Cell and Developmental Biology (CBD) chair groups, led by Prof. Ronald Pierik and Prof. Viola Willemsen, respectively. You will be working at the ‘Romanowski (TimES lab)’ and the ‘de Keijzer’ groups, led by Dr Andres Romanowski and Jeroen De Keijzer, respectively. You will be co-supervised by Prof. Pierik, Dr Romanowski, Prof. Willemsen and Dr de Keijzer. Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• Partially paid parental leave;
• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• the option to accrue additional compensation / holiday hours by working more, up to 40 hours per week;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed December bonus of 8.3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will receive a fully funded PhD position and you will be offered a course program tailored to your needs and the research team.
The gross salary for the first year is € 2.770 - per month rising to € 3.539,- in the fourth year in according to the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale P). This is based on a full-time working week of 38 hours. We offer a temporary contract for 18 months which will be extended for the duration of the project if you perform well.
There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a unique position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.
You are going to work at the greenest and most innovative campus in Holland, and at a university that has been chosen as the “Best University” in the Netherlands for the 19th consecutive time.

Much like commuters between cities, proteins can move from one cell to another. One way in which intercellular ‘commuting’ is achieved is through cytoplasmic bridges called plasmodesmata (PD). PD span cell walls, effectively creating a link between the cytoplasm of two adjacent cells. How this dynamic process is affected by environmental factors is still largely unexplored. In this joint project between the Romanowski and the De Keijzer groups, we want to understand how environmental factors, particularly neighbouring shade signals, can affect cell-to-cell protein mobility.
As a successful candidate, you will investigate protein movement across cells in Arabidopsis leaves under shade-like conditions, using both targeted and untargeted multi-omics methodologies. Fluorescent tags that allow (GFP) or hamper (3xGFP) protein mobility will track the functionality of specific mobile proteins. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) coupled with single-cell proteomics will help identify the specific cells in which these genes are transcribed and map proteins that move across cell layers. Integrating proteomic data with scRNA-seq results will help build a comprehensive map of protein dynamics and regulatory networks at the single-cell, particularly in the context of shade-avoidance signalling.
Comparative analyses will also determine if protein dynamics observed in Arabidopsis are conserved in moss, providing insights into the evolutionary conservation of light-dependent regulation of protein movement.
Overall, this project combines advanced technologies in molecular- and cell biology and bioinformatics to uncover the regulatory network controlling protein movement across cell layers in response to environmental stimuli. Our findings will have implications for our understanding of plant plasticity and signalling across evolution and into food security.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• To study environmentally mediated changes in protein mobility and identify the mechanisms involved in cell-to-cell protein mobility.
• To establish and operate techniques such as single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics.
• To study the conservation of the process across evolutionarily distant species.
• To write peer-reviewed open-access scientific manuscripts, observe good research data management practices and abide by the FAIR guidelines.
• To participate in teaching and supervising BSc and MSc thesis students.