진학프로석·박사 채용 접수 플랫폼

You will be working in a newly established research group, led by Lenka Caisova. Our group focuses on the establishment of the green multicellular alga Draparnaldia as a new model to study the evolution of multicellularity and terrestrialization in green plants. 

(https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.12.612648v1).

Position is focused on the evolution of multicellularity. This topic is extremely relevant for studying how life evolved, but remains poorly understood because of lack of suitable models.

Green plants contain two main lineages: chlorophytes and streptophytes. These two lineages evolved multicellularity independently and although they often co-exist in the same habitats; only Streptophyte algae have managed the transition from water and diversified into the amazing variety of all the plants. However, some Chlorophyte algae acquired a developmental complexity comparable to the early land plants and the novel chlorophyte algal model that we are establishing - Draparnaldia – is even capable of surviving in and morphologically adapting to terrestrial habitat. This raises the question why no land plant species evolved from the Chlorophyte lineage.

So far, the evolution of multicellularity in green plants has been studied solely in the Streptophyte lineage including land plants and Streptophyte algae. There are no model systems and genomes of morphologically complex Chlorophyte algae available, which is a limitation to the studies on the evolution of multicellularity in plants. At present, Draparnaldia is the only alga that can address this topic. Thus, Draparnaldia represents a major breakthrough in our understanding of plants’ acquisition of multicellularity.

Our group sequenced Draparnaldia’s genome and several transcriptomes, providing a unique opportunity to identify the genes associated with multicellularity in this alga. Please join us and uncover with us one of the major evolutionary mysteries in biology – the evolution of multicellularity in green plants.

Our laboratory is a part of the prestigious ERA Chair project within the Horizon Europe programme. We are located at the Institute of Plant Molecular Biology at the Biology Centre CAS based in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic. Biology Centre CAS ranks among the largest scientific institutions engaged in environmentally oriented research in Europe. Ceske Budejovice is a university city and it has been evaluated as one of the best places to live in the Czech Republic.

If you are interested in curiosity driven research that combines multidisciplinary approach, 

please contact us at lenka.caisova@umbr.cas.cz.