Lab News

RECENT

  • Cell wall–membrane anchors keep plant cells resilient during drought

    Arabidopsis thaliana grown in the Dinneny lab. Image: Yue Rui
    Arabidopsis thaliana grown in the Dinneny lab. Image: Yue Rui

    When cells lose water, the plasma membrane pulls away from the cell wall except at attachment points first described more than a century ago as Hechtian strands. Yue Rui and colleagues identified the molecular basis of these attachments: cellulose synthase complexes establish them, while remorin proteins limit their number. Plants with more attachment points recover better from osmotic stress, revealing a tunable structural mechanism of drought resilience. The work was done with Peter Dahlberg and collaborators at Carnegie, Aarhus, Rutgers, Freiburg and UNC.

    Coverage: Stanford Report | Phys.org

    Rui Y, Zaoralova M, Dwyer W, Reyes AV, Grismer TS, Abel NB, Jayachandran D, Chundawat SPS, Ott T, Kieber JJ, Dahlberg PD, Xu S-L, Dinneny JR (2026) Plant cell wall-plasma membrane attachments mediate stress resilience through cellulose synthase complexes and remorins. Cell. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.05.009 | free access link

  • How root cell types diverge across the Brassicaceae

    Guannan Wang and collaborators in the Schiefelbein and Dassanayake labs generated cell-type-resolved expression atlases of roots from several Brassicaceae species, including stress-tolerant extremophytes, under control and stress conditions. Comparing homologous cell types across species revealed which expression programs are conserved and which have diversified, and showed that stress responses have evolved in a cell-type-specific manner.

    Wang G, Ryu KH, Dinneny A, Carlson J, Goodstein DM, Lee J, Oh D-H, Oliva M, Lister R, Dinneny JR, Schiefelbein J, Dassanayake M (2026) Evolutionary diversity of cell-type-specific expression and stress response in Brassicaceae roots. Nature Communications 17:6660. doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-73270-2

  • Corn varieties differ widely in how their roots seek water

    Johannes Scharwies and José Dinneny with corn grown to study root responses to moisture at the Stanford greenhouses. Image: LiPo Ching, Stanford University
    Johannes Scharwies and José Dinneny with corn grown to study root responses to moisture at the Stanford greenhouses. Image: LiPo Ching, Stanford University

    Johannes Scharwies and colleagues surveyed maize breeding germplasm for hydropatterning, the ability of roots to place branches toward available water, and found large differences among lines: tropical-adapted varieties retained a strong response that many modern U.S. lines have lost. Genetic and transcriptomic analysis identified the hormone ethylene, acting alongside auxin, as a regulator of moisture-responsive root branching, pointing to pathways that could be used to breed more drought-resilient corn.

    Coverage: Stanford Report

    Scharwies JD, Clarke T, Zheng Z, Dinneny A, Birkeland S, Veltman MA, Sturrock CJ, Torres-Martinez HH, Viana WG, Khare R, Kieber J, Pandey BKK, Bennett MJ, Schnable PS, Dinneny JR (2025) Moisture-responsive root-branching pathways identified in diverse maize breeding germplasm. Science. doi: 10.1126/science.ads5999 | free access link

  • José named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator

    José Dinneny. Image: HHMI
    José Dinneny. Image: HHMI

    José has been selected as an HHMI Investigator in the 2024 class. The appointment provides long-term, flexible support for the lab’s work on how roots sense and adapt to water availability across diverse plant species, and, as José put it, the freedom to “fully support the curiosity and passion of the students and scientists” in the lab.

    Read more: Stanford Report | HHMI investigator profile

  • Mapping osmotic stress pathways across the green lineage

    Josep Vilarrasa-Blasi and colleagues combined phosphoproteomics, transcriptomics and genetic screening in Chlamydomonas to define how a single-celled green alga responds to osmotic stress. The analysis identified stress pathways conserved between algae and land plants and highlighted roles for distinct cellular compartments in the response, offering a simplified system for dissecting the core machinery plants use to perceive water loss.

    Vilarrasa-Blasi J, Vellosillo T, Jinkerson RE, Fauser F, Xiang T, Minkoff BB, Wang L, Kniazev K, Guzman M, Osaki J, Sussman MR, Jonikas MC, Dinneny JR (2024) Multi-omics analysis of green lineage osmotic stress pathways unveils crucial roles of different cellular compartments. Nature Communications 15:5988. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-49844-3

  • A robotics-assisted platform for imaging root growth dynamics

    Therese LaRue and colleagues built an automated imaging system that photographs soil-grown, luminescent root systems in rhizotrons over time. Applying it to a panel of natural Arabidopsis accessions revealed extensive variation in root system architecture and its growth dynamics and identified candidate loci underlying that variation, demonstrating how time-resolved phenomics can connect root form to genotype.

    LaRue T, Lindner H, Srinivas A, Exposito-Alonso M, Lobet G, Dinneny JR (2022) Uncovering natural variation in root system architecture and growth dynamics using a robotics-assisted phenomics platform. eLife 11:e76968. doi: 10.7554/eLife.76968

  • Synthetic genetic circuits reprogram how roots grow

    Synthetic genetic circuits designed to rewire gene expression in plant roots. Image: Jennifer Brophy
    Synthetic genetic circuits designed to rewire gene expression in plant roots. Image: Jennifer Brophy

    Jennifer Brophy led the design of synthetic genetic circuits that perform Boolean logic in plant cells, using synthetic transcription factors and promoters to control where and when genes are expressed. By wiring the circuits to a regulator of lateral root development, the team altered the number and density of root branches in Arabidopsis in a predictable way, establishing a framework for building root systems tailored to specific soils and climates.

    Coverage: Stanford Report | Science Perspective by Alamos and Shih

    Brophy JAN, Magallon K, Duan L, Zhong V, Ramachandran P, Kniazev K, Dinneny JR (2022) Synthetic genetic circuits as a means of reprogramming plant roots. Science 377:747-751. doi: 10.1126/science.abo4326

  • Genome-wide phenotyping of a photosynthetic organism

    In a collaboration with the Jonikas (Princeton) and Jinkerson (UC Riverside) labs, a genome-wide mutant collection of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was profiled across more than a hundred growth conditions, linking thousands of genes to phenotypes and identifying conserved gene functions in photosynthesis, stress tolerance and other processes. The dataset provides a functional map for the green lineage and a resource for identifying genes relevant to crop and algal engineering.

    Fauser F, Vilarrasa-Blasi J, Onishi M, Ramundo S, Patena W, Millican M, Osaki J, Philp C, Nemeth M, Salomé PA, Li X, Wakao S, Kim RG, Kaye Y, Grossman AR, Niyogi KK, Merchant S, Cutler S, Walter P, Dinneny JR, Jonikas MC, Jinkerson RE (2022) Systematic characterization of gene function in a photosynthetic organism. Nature Genetics 54:705-714. doi: 10.1038/s41588-022-01052-9

  • Extreme plants grow faster in the face of stress

    Schrenkiella parvula thrives in extremely salty conditions. Image: José Dinneny
    Schrenkiella parvula thrives in extremely salty conditions. Image: José Dinneny

    Most plants slow growth when the stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA) accumulates. In the extremophyte Schrenkiella parvula, a relative of Arabidopsis native to saline soils, ABA instead promotes growth. Ying Sun and colleagues traced this reversal to a rewired ABA-responsive gene regulatory network, showing that divergence in a conserved stress network can switch growth control from a brake to an accelerator. The work points to regulatory changes that could be used to engineer crops that tolerate degraded and saline soils.

    Coverage: Stanford Report

    Sun Y, Oh DH, Duan L, Ramachandran P, Ramirez A, Bartlett A, Dassanayake M, Dinneny JR (2022) Divergence in a stress-associated gene regulatory network underlies differential growth control. Nature Plants 8:549-560. doi: 10.1038/s41477-022-01139-5

  • A disordered-protein biosensor reports osmotic stress inside living cells

    Cesar Cuevas-Velazquez and colleagues converted SED1, an intrinsically disordered late-embryogenesis-abundant protein from Arabidopsis, into a genetically encoded FRET biosensor. The sensor reports physicochemical changes in the cell interior within seconds of osmotic stress and functions in plant, yeast and human cells, providing a real-time readout of how water loss alters the intracellular environment.

    Cuevas-Velazquez CL, Vellosillo T, Guadalupe K, Schmidt BH, Yu F, Moses D, Brophy JAN, Cosio-Acosta D, Das A, Wang L, Jones AM, Covarrubias AA, Sukenik S, Dinneny JR (2021) Intrinsically disordered protein biosensor tracks the physical-chemical effects of osmotic stress on cells. Nature Communications 12:5438. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25736-8