Coupling of large-scale data sets for the identification of transcriptional regulators of core cell-cycle genes

Plant organ size depends on the number and size of cells and is tightly controlled. The process of cell division is orchestrated by core cell cycle genes, but despite the well-known exact spatial and temporal expression pattern of these genes, knowledge on their transcriptional control is barely available.

We have generated a large-scale data set, showing which transcription factors can potentially bind to a selected set of 10 core cell cycle genes. The challenge in this project is to provide additional evidence for these regulatory interactions and to predict the effects of these interactions on the temporal and spatial expression of the core cell cycle genes. For this purpose, the available data-set needs to be combined with large-scale expression data, information about protein-protein interactions, and complex formation capacity for the proteins encoded by the core-cell cycle genes and their regulators (the transcription factors). A potential cell cycle transcriptional regulatory network will be constructed, and used to predict the effect of particular transcription factors on cell division.