Today, Yu Zhu successfully defended his PhD thesis “Ubiquitin-mediated control of cell wall signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana” Yu’s thesis investigated the how protein ubiquitination plays a role in cell wall signaling. He discovered ubiquitin-mediated control of two different components of cell wall signaling, linking protein ubiquitination to cell wall synthesis and hormone transport. Special thanks to his external examiner, Prof. Chris Staiger Purdue University. Watch this space for Yu’s upcoming publications. Congratulations, Dr. Zhu!
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Welcome new BSc Students
5 new BSc students join the lab today:
Olivia Boyle, Stella Chen, and Anastasija Petrovic have take up work-study positions.
Fayeza Azad returns to the lab for a CSB499 project working Fabrizio on cross-talk of cell will signaling with other pathways.
Aliya Zulaikha Mohd Zamri starts a CSB498 project working with Jordan on screening for cell wall signaling mutants.
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Natalie wins CSPB Ragai Ibrahim Award
McFarLab PhD graduate, Dr. Natalie Hoffmann, has been awarded the Ragai Ibrahim Award from the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists for the best student paper for her work in the McFarLab that was also featured on the cover of Developmental Cell:
Hoffmann, N., and McFarlane, H.E.# (2024) Xyloglucan side chains enable polysaccharide secretion to the plant cell wall. Developmental Cell, 59: 2609-2625.
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Heather at the GRC on Plant Single Cell Biology
This week, Heather is at the Gordon Research Conference Single Cell Approaches in Plant Biology hosted at the University of Southern Maine. She is an invited plenary speaker and will present on August 12 in the evening session.
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Heather at the PCA CNP Meeting
Today, Heather is at the Plant Cell Atlas Core Network Participant meeting as co-chair of the Imaging Committee, and member of the Communications & Outreach Committee.
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New collaborative paper published in Nature Plants
Flowering plants require three different nuclei in the pollen to travel and the sperm cell nuclei must travel through the pollen tube to reach the plant ovule. Our collaboration with Yi Zhang’s group at Beijing Normal University is now available online with Nature Plants. This work describes two kinesins that are involved in transporting the sperm nuclei in the pollen tube, providing insight into how plants ensure efficient fertilization without free-swimming sperm.
Yan, Y., Dai, L., Wang, B., Wang, T., Sun, Z., Wang, Y., Xing, C., Zhou, J., Luo, X., Zhu, Y., McFarlane, H.E., Gong, Y., Zhang, X., Xu, B., Hu, Y., Ren, H., and Zhang, Y. 2025. Kinesin proteins HUG1 and HUG2 are essential for the formation and transportation of male germ units in Arabidopsis pollen tubes. Nature Plants, 11: 1489-1499.
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Carlo presents at Plant Cell Biology International
Today, Carlo will present his PhD work, co-supervised by Heather and Prof. Nick Provart, at the Plant Cell Biology International Conference “Towards virtual structure-function analyses of protein-ligand interactions using computational docking and in silico mutagenesis”. Several other members of the lab will be in attendance to cheer him on!
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New paper in Plant Cell
Microscopy is an essential tool for plant biologists, but new users may face many challenges when working with plant samples. A panel of experts from the Plant Cell Atlas, led by Imaging Committee co-chairs Dr. Kirk Czymmek at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Centre and Prof. Heather E. McFarlane at the University of Toronto, have put together a manual for best practices in plant fluorescence imaging and reporting. This paper offers guidance to new and intermediate microscope users with the goal of making published microscopy data better aligned with FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) principles.
Czymmek, K.J.#, Benitez-Alfonso, Y., Burch-Smith, T., Di Costanzo, L.F., Drakakaki, G., Facette, M., Kierzkowski, D., Klebanovych, A., Radin, I., Roychoudhry, S. and McFarlane, H.E.#, 2025. Best practices in plant fluorescence imaging and reporting: A primer. The Plant Cell, 37: koaf143.
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Welcome Callum
Callum Hayes joins the McFarLab this week as a visiting PhD student from Prof. Mike Haydon’s group at the University of Melbourne. Callum won a RN Robertson scholarship from Australian Society of Plant Scientists to support his travel, and the collaboration between the Haydon Lab and the McFarLab is supported by an NSERC Alliance International Catalyst Grant. Welcome, Callum!
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Heather at the Plant Cell Wall Meeting
This week, Heather is at the 2025 International Conference on Plant Cell Wall Biology at the University of British Columbia. She will speak about Yu’s PhD work on protein ubiquitination in cell wall signaling on July 8.