Hidemasa Suzuki: The Plant Cell First Author

Hidemasa Suzuki, first author of “Auxin signaling is essential for organogenesis but not for cell survival in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha“

Current Position

Assistant professor at Tohoku University, Japan

Education

Ph.D. in Life Sciences, Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University

Non-scientific Interests

Video games

Brief bio

I joined Prof. Takayuki Kohchi’s lab in 2014 and analyzed developmental rules and underlying molecular regulation in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. With a focus on understanding evolutionary conservation and physiological roles of auxin signaling, I collaborated with my colleagues to study MpTIR1, the sole homolog of auxin receptor in M. polymorpha. In our study, we demonstrated that MpTIR1 acts as an auxin receptor through biochemical and genetic assays. We revealed that the MpTIR1-mediated auxin signaling is dispensable for cell viability but essential for organogenesis based on cell clump-phenotype and transcriptomic status of MpTIR1 knockout mutants. I would like to deepen our study in terms of upstream and downstream regulation of the auxin signaling and widen it in terms of evolutionary conservation.