Principal Investigator
Email:khiromu@cemps.ac.cn
Personal Web:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7246-2242
Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis
Hiromu Kameoka
Personal Profile
Education:
Mar 2010: B.S. in Agriculture, The University of Tokyo
Mar 2012: M.S. in Agriculture, The University of Tokyo
Mar 2015: Ph.D. in Agriculture, The University of Tokyo
Working experience:
Apr 2015 - Mar 2018: Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute for Basic Biology
April 2018 - May 2020: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research (JSPS) Fellow
June 2020 - Aug 2022: Assistant Professor, Tohoku University
Nov 2022– Current position
Research Work
Main Achievements
A. Pure culture of AM fungi
AM fungi produce daughter spores only after colonizing host plants. This feature strictly hinders both the basic research and the agricultural use of AM fungi, because we have to culture AM fungi with host plants to produce AM fungus inoculums, which is costly and time-consuming.
We found that specific fatty acids induce spore formation in AM fungi. We focused on the finding that co-culture of AM fungi and the bacteria Paenibacillus validus induce spore formation of AM fungi without host plants and purified (S)-12-methyltetradecanoic acid, a methylbranched-chain fatty acid, from P. validus as a compound that induces spore formation in AM fungi. Furthermore, we examined the activity of several fatty acids in spore formation and found that palmitoleic acid and myristic acid strongly induces spore formation. Spores induced by palmitoleic acid can germinate, colonize host plants, and generate next-generation spores (Kameoka et al., 2019. Nat. Microbiol.; Sugiura et al., 2020. PNAS; Tanaka et al., 2022. Commun Biol). Based on these findings, we established the first pure culture system for AM fungi, which would be a breakthrough for the production of AM fungus inoculums.
B. Identification of a putative KL inactivation enzyme
KAI2 ligand (KL) is an unidentified plant hormones that regulate plant development and AM symbiosis. While the KL signaling pathway is well characterized, the KL metabolism pathways remain poorly understood.
We identified the putative KL inactivation enzyme DIENELACTONE HYDROLASE LIKE PROTEIN1 (DLP1) in the bryophyte Marchantia polymorpha (Kameoka et al., 2023. Curr. Biol.). The KL signal induces DLP1 expression. The KL responses are impaired in DLP1 overexpression lines and enhanced in dlp1 mutants. Disruption of the genes in the KL signaling pathway largely suppressed these phenotypes. Our results suggest that DLP1 acts upstream of the KL signaling pathway and negatively regulates the pathway. Furthermore, DLP1 hydrolyzes some organic compounds, implying that DLP1 is a KL inactivation enzyme, although we cannot rule out the possibility that DLP1 regulates the amount of KLs in indirect ways or the activities of the component of KL signaling genes. Our findings provide new insights into the regulation of the KL signal.
Publications
19. Minakuchi K, Kameoka H, Yasuno N, Umehara M, Luo L, Kobayashi K, Hanada A, Ueno K, Asami T, Yamaguchi S, Kyozuka J (2010) FINE CULM1 (FC1) works downstream of strigolactones to inhibit the outgrowth of axillary buds in rice. Plant Cell Physiol 51: 1127–1135