The RTNakano Lab

Research Interest

We are interested in how plant growth and immunity are controlled in the natural environment and how the plant-associated microbial community ("plant microbiota") contributes to these processes.

Specifically, we aim to reveal the molecular/genetic framework that dictates the molecular dialog between plants and associated microbiota. The goal is to identify the genes and the molecules that mediate the interaction and to decipher their spatiotemporal dynamics.

Ultimately, we will address the evolutionary trajectories of plant-microbiota interactions.

Toward this end, we employ multiple approaches, including plant and microbial genetics (i.e. generating mutants and testing phenotypes), multi-omics (RNAseq and proteomics), microbiota profiling, and cell biology.

Keywords

• Arabidopsis thaliana

• microbiota

• Rhizobiales bacteria

• Molecular genetics

• Cell biology / confocal microscopy

• Biochemistry

• Microbiota profiling (amplicon sequencing / metagenomics)

• Comparative genomics

• Transcriptomics (RNAseq)

• Proteomics

• Metabolomics

Key publications

Garrido-Oter*, Nakano*, Dombrowski* et al., 2018, Cell Host & Microbe

Hiruma et al., 2016, Cell