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Work & Education

2020 – present  Professor & Principal Investigator, School of Life Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China

2015 – 2020  Postdoctoral researcher, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria

2009 – 2015  DPhil of Genetics, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institute for Biological Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

2005 – 2009  BSc of Science in Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Shandong University

Research Work

Plants have evolved high plasticity in their growth and development owing to their sessile lifestyles. This is ensured by complex molecular networks, requiring the interplay between different signalling pathways .

Funded first by EMBO Long-Term Fellowship and Marie Currie COFUND, I started my postdoctoral research on the non-transcriptional effect of the plant hormone salicylic acid (SA) in Prof. Jiri Friml's lab at IST Austria. With the advantage of state-of-the-art microscopy and live-imaging approaches, I identified a novel target of SA and uncovered the molecular mechanism underlying the developmental role of SA (Tan et al., Current Biology, 2020). Inspired by an experience of toothache, I exhibited strong interest in the function and mechanism of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin and ibuprofen, which have been developed based on SA. Indeed, SA is an ancient drug, and it was even used for curing fever and pains thousands of years ago all over the world. Though the mechanism for NSAIDs releasing inflammation seems unsolved, i.e. targeting COX-2 to inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis, there had been no study revisiting the activity of NSAIDs in plants. Thus, I tested plants’sensitivity to aspirin and ibuprofen, and discovered a striking twisted phenomenon caused by these two drugs. I identified one promising target of NSAIDs, TWISTED DWARF1, which might explain for part of their functions (Tan et al., Cell Reports, 2020).

Another major topic of the Tan group is the molecular regulation of PIN-FORMED (PIN)-mediated auxin transport. PINs are a family of auxin efflux carriers, and they are under multilevel regulations, including post-translational modification. In the field of auxin biology, it was thought for more than one decade that PDK1 phosphorylates PINOID, one AGC kinase responsible for PIN phosphorylation and polarity in plants. However, the exact role of PDK1 is unclear, without well-characterised fully knock-out genetic materials. By multiple approaches, I found that PDK1 has pleiotropic functions independently of PINOID. Instead, PDK1 phosphorylates a small sub-clade of AGC kinases, D6PKs, to phosphorylate PIN transporters. Notably, both PDK1 and D6PKs are basal localized, in a lipid-dependent manner, presenting a phosphoswitch for regulating PIN-mediated auxin transport and plant development (Tan et al., Nature Plants, 2020). This study adds a crucial piece to the puzzle of PIN-centred auxin transport framework.

Currently, our research work mainly focuses on:

1. Auxin Biology: Novel regulatory factors involved in auxin biosynthesis, signaling and transport, especially PIN-mediated polar auxin transport.

2. Salicylic acid & Plant development: the developmental role of salicylic acid (SA) in plants, especially via crosstalk with the auxin network.

3. Plant Cell and Developmental Biology: The ESCRT-mediated vacuolar degradation pathway.

4. Reversible protein phosphorylation: protein kinases and phosphatases involved plant developments, as well as their functions and regulations.

• Polar auxin transport
• Roles of auxin in shoot architecture and root system development
• Crosstalk of auxin-salicylic acid in root development
• Bioactivity of natural compounds in plant cells

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