Moritz Nowack
Seed Development
VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, UGent

PhD: Univ of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, '07 Postdoc: Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany, '07-'09 VIB Group leader as of October 2009

e-mail phone +32 9 331 38 52 ADDRESS

Current team members
Group leader: Moritz Nowack
Ph.D. Student: Tom Van Hautegem
Support personnel: Freya De Winter

Keywords
seed development  - cell death - endosperm - Arabidopsis thaliana - Brachypodium distachyon

Science
During the course of evolution, flowering plants have become one of the predominant life forms on earth. One reason of this evolutionary success is the rapid development of an embryo alongside a nutritive tissue called the endosperm. The embryo and the endosperm are surrounded by layers of maternal tissues, the seed integuments. The trinity of embryo, endosperm, and integuments form the plant seed. The seed is the embryo’s lifeboat in space and time, and stockpiled nutrients feed the germinating seedling. Likewise, seed-derived nutrients represent the major food source for mankind, and thus a comprehensive understanding of seed development is of utmost importance to ensure our sustenance in the decades to come.

In order to form a functional seed, all seed components have to develop in a highly coordinated manner, representing a paradigm for communication between cells and tissues. These communication events start with the double fertilization that generates the diploid embryo and the typically triploid endosperm. Though both embryo and endosperm are zygotic products, their fates differ fundamentally: While the embryo carries on to form the next plant generation, the endosperm’s destiny is to die during seed development, undergoing a developmentally regulated cell death. The group’s major focus is to unravel the molecular control of the endosperm’s terminal differentiation steps culminating in cell death in Arabidopsis thaliana as a dicot model, and Brachypodium distachyon, an emerging grass model species.

Ungru A, Nowack M, Reymond M, Shirzadi R, Kumar M, Biewers S, Grini P, Schnittger A
Natural variation in the degree of autonomous endosperm formation reveals independence and constraints of embryo growth during seed development in Arabidopsis thaliana
GENETICS 179, 829-41, 2008



Dissmeyer N, Nowack M, Pusch S, Stals H, Inzé D, Grini P, Schnittger A
T-loop phosphorylation of Arabidopsis CDKA;1 is required for its function and can be partially substituted by an aspartate residue
PLANT CELL 19, 972-85, 2007



Nowack M, Shirzadi R, Dissmeyer N, Dolf A, Endl E, Grini P, Schnittger A
Bypassing genomic imprinting allows seed development
NATURE 447, 312-5, 2007



Nowack M, Grini P, Jakoby M, Lafos M, Koncz C, Schnittger A
A positive signal from the fertilization of the egg cell sets off endosperm proliferation in angiosperm embryogenesis
NAT GENET 38, 63-7, 2006



Weinl C, Marquardt S, Kuijt S, Nowack M, Jakoby M, Hulskamp M, Schnittger A
Novel functions of plant cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, ICK1/KRP1, can act non-cell-autonomously and inhibit entry into mitosis
PLANT CELL 17, 1704-22, 2005

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