Friedrich Kragler Group

Friedrich Kragler

is one of the PLAMORF principal investigators, located at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm, Germany. His main research interested is in the mechanisms and function of intercellular and long-distance transport of proteins and RNAs in plants. After his PhD in genetics on the import of peroxisomal proteins in yeast at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology (Vienna Biocenter, University of Vienna, Austria) he obtained a Schrödinger fellowship as a post-doc in the laboratory of Prof. William J. Lucas at UC-Davis (CA, USA). This was followed by a post-doc position with Elisabeth Waigmann (University of Vienna, Austria) and a research position at UC-Davis. In 2003 Friedrich became group leader at the University of Vienna, where he habilitated shortly afterwards. In 2011 he started his current position as group leader.

Find out more about him and his group on the Max Planck website, ResearchGate, LinkeIn

Major PLAMORF publications:

m⁵C methylation guides systemic transport of messenger RNA over graft junctions. Current Biology, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.042
Video method paper: Methylated RNA Immunoprecipitation Assay to Study m⁵C Modification in Arabidopsis. JoVE, 2020, doi:10.3791/61231
Long-Distance Transported RNAs: From Identity to Function. Annual Review of Plant Biology 2022, doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-070121-033601
Protocol: Arabidopsis Callus Grafting Method to Test Cell-to-Cell Mobility of Proteins. In: Plasmodesmata, 2022. Methods in Molecular Biology, doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2132-5_20
Shoot and Root Single Cell Sequencing Reveals Tissue- and Daytime-Specific Transcriptome Profiles. Plant Physiology, 2021, doi: 10.1093/plphys/kiab537
A Phenotypic Search on Graft Compatibility in Grapevine. Agronomy, 2020, doi: 10.3390/agronomy10050706

Other relevant publications:

Endogenous Arabidopsis messenger RNAs transported to distant tissues. Nature Plants 2015; doi: 10.1038/nplants.2015.25

Interview with Friedrich

Eleftheria Saplaoura

Is a postdoctoral scientist in the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany. After her masters in molecular biology and biotechnology of plants at the University of Crete, Greece, she joined the Kragler lab for her PhD to study m⁵C RNA methylation and tRNA-like structures as mRNA mobility signals. Eleftheria is an expert in RNA biology, RNA-binding proteins and epitranscriptomics.

In PLAMORF she will mainly work on characterization of mRNA cytosine methyltransferases and other phloem RNA-binding proteins.

PLAMORF publications:

m⁵C methylation guides systemic transport of messenger RNA over graft junctions, Current Biology, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.042
Video method paper: Methylated RNA Immunoprecipitation Assay to Study m⁵C Modification in Arabidopsis. JoVE, 2020, doi:10.3791/61231

Other relevant publications:

Mobile Transcripts and Intercellular Communication in Plants, The Enzymes, Developmental Signalling in Plants, 2016. doi: 10.1016/bs.enz.2016.07.001

Visit her profile on: ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Twitter

Yağmur Hasbioğlu

After obtaining a Masters degree in Molecular Plant Science from the University of Hamburg Yagmur joined the group of Friedrich Kragler at the Max Planck Institute as a PhD student. She wants to know more about cell-to-cell and long distance mobile mRNAs and nutrient starvation responses. So in PLAMORF she preparing single-cell RNAseq libraries of nutrient starving plants and confirming the tissue-specific mobility in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Visit her profile on Linkedin and ORCID

PLAMORF publications:

Protocol: Arabidopsis Callus Grafting Method to Test Cell-to-Cell Mobility of Proteins. In: Plasmodesmata, 2022. Methods in Molecular Biology, doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2132-5_20
3D Printable files: Moulds for callus co-cultivation. 2021, availabe from Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4446896

Yuan Zhou

Is a PhD student in Friedrich Kraglers group at the Max Planck Institute. Yuan graduated from the Shandong Agriculture University in China. Her main interest is in viral tRNA-like structures as mRNA mobility signals. In PLAMORF she will be following up on this by addressing the potential relationship between viral RNA movement, presence of tRNA-like structure and viral RNA methylation.

Visit her profile on ResearchGate; Linkedin and ORCID

Diego Brito

Is a PhD student in the Kragler group. He did his masters in plant biochemisty and physiology at the University of Sao Paulo. Diegos’ main interests lie in plant development, RNA biology and epigenetics.

In mhisy PhD project he is investigating the role of phloem RNA binding proteins in RNA mobility and their potential effects in plant growth and development. He is also trying to uncover the protein and RNA content of Arabidopsis sieve elements protoplasts.

Visit his profile on ResearchGate; Linkedin and ORCID

Sezgin Mengi

is a PhD student in the Kragler group. Sezgin has a master degree from Sabanci University in Turkey, where he was working on the endemic plant Vuralia turcica, trying to understand its polycarpellary structure. In general, he is interested in gGene editing, Cas9 mRNA mobility, long distance protein and mRNA mobility.

In PLAMORF he wants to understand where mobile mRNAs are unloaded in targeting tissues by using mobile CRISPR/Cas9 editing factors.

Visit his profile on ResearchGate; Linkedin or X (Twitter).

András Szekely

Joined the Kragler group in June 2019 as a PhD student, after obtaining his masters degree in agricultural biotechnology at Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Szent István University, where he also completed his bachelor studies.

In PLAMORF he is working on the potential role of mobile GRP7 and on finding mobile mRNAs in Brassica napus tissues.

Previous group / Project members

Ying Xu

Has a master degree from Zhejiang University, China. She is now working as a PhD student in Friedrich Kraglers group, focusing on mobile mRNA signalling function and phloem RNA-binding proteins. For PLAMORF she is working on transport mechanisms of mRNAs moving between cells and via the phloem to distant tissues.

Check out her ResearchGate and ORCID profiles!

Saurabh Gupta

Is a postdoctoral scientist in the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany. His main expertise in sin NGS data analysis, genomics, transcriptomics and algorithm development. He previously worked for several years as a bioinformatics associate at the Bio-IT Centre of the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) in Bangalore, India, followed by a PhD studying abiotic stress tolerance in plants using genomics approaches at the Müller-Röber lab, University of Potsdam.

In PLAMORF he establishes the single-cell RNAseq analysis workflow and analyses single-cell transcriptome datasets from Arabidopsis and Brassica.

Visit his profile on: ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Twitter

PLAMORF publications:

The Impact of Metabolic Scion–Rootstock Interactions in Different Grapevine Tissues and Phloem Exudates. Metabolites, 2021, doi: 10.3390/metabo11060349
Primary carbohydrate metabolism genesparticipate in heat-stress memory at the shootapical meristem ofArabidopsis thaliana. Molecular Plant, 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2021.05.024
Shoot and Root Single Cell Sequencing Reveals Tissue- and Daytime-Specific Transcriptome Profiles. Plant Physiology, 2021, doi: 10.1093/plphys/kiab537
Physiological Profiling of Embryos and Dormant Seeds in Two Arabidopsis Accessions Reveals a Metabolic Switch in Carbon Reserve Accumulation. Frontiers in Plant Science, 2020, doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.588433

Lei Yang

Was a postdoctoral scientist in the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany. After his masters in genetics at the Center for Agricultural Resources Research, at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences he joined the Kragler lab for his PhD to study the verification of systemic mRNAs mobility and mobile functions. Following the PhD he continued as a post-Doc to work on transgene-free genome editing by mobile CRISPR/Cas9.

Find out more about him on ResearchGate and ORCID.

Major publications:

m⁵C methylation guides systemic transport of messenger RNA over graft junctions. Current Biology, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.042

tRNA- Related Sequences trigger systemic mRNA transport in plants. Plant Cell, 2016, doi: 10.1105/tpc.15.01056

Frank Machin

Was a post-doc in Friedrich Kraglers group. During his PhD at the University of Edinburgh he worked on the development of a single-plant-cell assay for high-throughput screening of agrochemicals affecting developmental response to abiotic stress in roots. His main research interest is in plant development, cell-to-cell connectivity, cell sorting and FACS.

PLAMORF publications:

3D Printable files: Moulds for callus co-cultivation. 2021, availabe from Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4446896
Protocol: Arabidopsis Callus Grafting Method to Test Cell-to-Cell Mobility of Proteins. In: Plasmodesmata, 2022. Methods in Molecular Biology, doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2132-5_20
Shoot and Root Single Cell Sequencing Reveals Tissue- and Daytime-Specific Transcriptome Profiles. Plant Physiology, 2021, doi: 10.1093/plphys/kiab537

Anupreet Saini

Joined Friedrich Kraglers group in July 2019 as a PhD student. She obtained her master degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Mohali – India.

In PLAMORF she was mainly working on confirming mobility of certain mRNA transcripts in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Visit her profile on: LinkedIn