Noriyuki Konishi: The Plant Cell First Author

Noriyuki Konishi, first author of “Polar localization of a rice silicon transporter requires isoleucine at both C- and N-termini as well as positively charged residues”

Current Position:

Assistant professor, Okayama University, Japan

Education:

B.S. (2008-2012) and Ph.D. (2012-2017) in Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Japan

Brief bio:

Before starting my academic career, I devoted most of my time to horses because I was a member of the equestrian team at Tohoku University. Honestly, I was not motivated to study science at that time, but after I joined Tomoyuki Yamaya’s lab of plant nutrition, I gradually became interest in studying plant science, similar to being fascinated with my lovely horses. During my Ph.D. course, I investigated the mechanisms of ammonium assimilation in Arabidopsis. After that, I joined Jian Feng Ma’s lab as a post-doctoral researcher in 2017 and started working on the mechanism underlying the polar localization of mineral transporters in rice, especially silicon transporter OsLsi1. In the present study, we identified critical residues required for the polar localization of OsLsi1 and revealed the importance of polar localization in efficient silicon uptake.  Since the mechanisms for the polar localization of most mineral transporters are still unclear, especially in rice, I will continue to work on this project to gain the whole picture of polar localization mechanisms.