PhD Studentship: Identifying the Evolutionary Origin of ‘Female’ Meiosis in Seed Plants

Like animals, plants reproduce through male and female sex cells formed by meiosis. Modern seed plants use ‘male’ meiosis in stamens (to make sperm-carrying pollen) and ‘female’ meiosis in seeds (to make the egg-carrying embryo-sac). Both are essential to seed production, and so our food security. Many of the genes that control male meiosis are known[1] but female meiosis is very different and remains poorly understood.

Older seedless plants like ferns have only one, ancestral type of meiosis resembling male meiosis in seed plants. So how did female meiosis evolve? Working with the fern Ceratopteris richardii we have the first evidence that ‘female meiosis’ genes may have been repurposed from another part of the plant lifecycle (the gametophyte)[2]. One critical gene to test this hypothesis is SHUGOSHIN, which is specific to meiosis in seed plants but found elsewhere in Ceratopteris.

This project aims to resolve how female meiosis first evolved by the following experiments:

• Characterise ancestral meiosis in Ceratopteris (microscopy and fluorescent in situ hybridization).
• Identify genes expressed during fern meiosis through molecular methods (RNA-seq).
• Map the expression of female meiosis genes across the fern lifecycle (RT-PCR, qPCR).
• Test to see if these ancestral genes can function in male or female meiosis through genetic engineering, swapping out the Arabidopsis gene for the fern copy.
• Identify the ancestral functions of SHUGOSHIN genes through genetic engineering in Ceratopteris.

Supervisors: Andrew Plackett (A.R.G.Plackett@bham.ac.uk) and Eugenio Sanchez-Moran.

Funding notes:

This is a PhD studentship with the Midlands Integrated Biosciences Training Partnership, funded by BBSRC and in partnership with the University of Warwick, Aston University, Harper Adams University, Coventry University, and the University of Leicester.

For more details please visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/mibtp/ or https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/about/college-of-life-and-environmental-sciences/midlands-integrative-biosciences-training-partnership

To apply, please follow this link, make an account, and submit an application via the university online admissions portal (via the above ‘Apply’ button). This link is unique to the MIBTP programme; please do not use any other link to apply to this project or your application may be rejected. 

References:

1. Osman J, Higgins JD, Sanchez-Moran E, Armstrong SJ, Franklin CH (2011). Pathways to meiotic recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana. New Phytologist 190: 523-544. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03665.x

2. Plackett ARG, Catoni M. Gene networks are conserved across reproductive development between the fern Ceratopteris richardii and the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.18.643782v1

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