Stomata: small plant "mouths" that sustain our world - Keiko Torii 🍃👄

Stomata, microscopic cellular "valves" on the outside of plants, are the point where plant and atmosphere. Stomata are not only needed for plant growth, survival and water-use efficiency but also impact global carbon and water cycles. The evolution of stomata allowed plants to conquer the land some 450 million years ago or so.

Over the past 20 years, molecular genetic studies in the model plant Arabidopsis have unraveled the key regulators of stomata differentiation and the mechanism that determines the patterning of stomata. More recent studies in across various plant species revealed that such key genes are conserved, but they are utilized in a slightly different manner to create variation in stomatal complexes. We can now "re-wire" the pathways that regulate stomatal development to produce plants that are adapted to climate change.

00:00 Introduction
01:44 What are stomata?
02:59 Stomata in fossils
04:16 How do stomata open & close?
06:57 Stomata & pathogen attack
08:21 Stomata patterning in different plants
14:26 The genetics of stomatal development
31:49 Stomatal patterning
37:30 Environmental factors affecting stomata development
38:19 Stomata evolution
40:46 Stomata in aquatic plants & seagrasses
44:31 Conclusions

Speaker profile: Keiko studies cell-cell interactions underlying tissue patterning and in plants, with an emphasis on the development of stomata. Eventually, it is hoped that Keiko's research will help us to design plants ideal for productivity and survival in changing climate. Currently, Keiko is the Centennial Chair in Plant Cell Biology at Department of Molecular Biosciences and HHMI at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. Before this, she was at the Department of Biology, University of Washington. Since 2013, she is the PI at the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules, Nagoya University, Japan, where her group takes chemical and synthetic approaches to manipulate plant hormone signaling. She received the 2021 Asahi Prize, 2015 Saruhashi Prize, and is Elected Fellow of American Association for Promotion of Sciences (ASPB) and American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). She served the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee, as well as various advisory roles in the US, Japan, and Europe. She brings international perspectives on promoting diversity in Plant Biology and more broadly in the STEM fields.


Filmed at the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School, 2022.