Karolina Majewska: The Plant Cell First Author

Karolina Majewska, co-first author of “Functional nuclear retention of pre-mRNA involving Cajal bodies during meiotic prophase in European larch (Larix decidua)”

Current Position: Ph.D. student in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Education: M.Sc. in Biotechnology at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland

Non-scientific Interests:  reading, microscopy, handicraft, swimming

Brief bio: My interest in posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression began during the research for my master thesis in the lab of Prof. Dariusz Jan Smoliński. During my thesis project, I worked on pre-mRNA’s nuclear retention, which encodes Sm proteins and one of the polymerase II subunit (RPB10). During this research, I used bioimaging techniques and the possibilities of high-resolution confocal microscopy. In my subsequent PhD work, I continued working on pre-mRNA retention, emphasizing the role of Cajal bodies in this process. These subnuclear domains are involved in many processes related to RNAs processing, but their role in nuclear retention has not yet been described. For this reason, our next goal is to isolate Cajal bodies, which can significantly contribute to understanding the molecular mechanism of mRNA retention in the area of these domains. I am fascinated to investigate molecular processes in detail in order to understand new functions of the nucleus in regulating gene expression during the development and differentiation of plant cells.