Dr Kumud Saini Research Portfolio

Throughout my scientific career, my research has revolved around one key question - how do plants respond to intrinsic signals such as hormones or extrinsic environmental cues such as light or temperature. Plants need to constantly adjust their growth according to their immediate environment. One way plants achieve this is through plasticity in their developmental program and thus their morphology. Since plant cells are immobile, unlike animal cells, this plasticity is achieved at the local cell level via changes in cell division or expansion processes. I am interested in understanding how such changes in an individual or a group of cells influence the growth of entire an organ or plant. 

Young developing Arabidopsis leaf

Confocal image of a young developing Arabidopsis leaf (left) showing a gradient of  divinding and expanding cells along the promixal-distal and medio-lateral growth axis. Cells were color coded according their area in MorphoGraphX (right).

Biomechanics of cell division and expansion

Currently, in the Robinson group, I am taking this question further and studying how mechanical signals influence a cell’s decision to divide or progress from division to expansion. One of the ways I am approaching this is by comparing the growth of cells under ambient and high ambient temperatures (5-7 °C higher than the optimal growth temperature). Warm temperatures are known to promote cell elongation in cells in petiole and hypocotyls and inhibit cell division in the leaves of the Arabidopsis plant (Saini et. al, 2022). The focus of my research is to understand mechanical cues in between dividing and expanding cells using primarily the developmental pathway of pavement cells (epidermal cells of plants that grow in jigsaw-like shapes)  in the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana. Taking advantage of bulk and single-nuclei RNA sequencing I am also trying to find out how plants respond to biomechanical stimuli and achieve alteration in their growth patterns.

Research background

Integrating developmental and environmental signals to adapt growth

During my postdoc at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi, India in the PhotoDevo lab with Dr. Aashish Ranjan, I studied how developmental signals integrate with environmental signals in bringing growth adaptations in plants. The lab approached it from an eco-evo-devo aspect and used comparative transcriptomics analysis to study the effects of shade and high temperature on tissue-specific growth changes in Arabidopsis, tomato, and rice. This transcriptomics dataset also helped me to develop a project that showed ROS homeostasis in temperature induced hypocotyl elongation (Raipuria et al. 2025).

High temperature effect on leaf development

Based on phenotyping and preliminary results from RNAseq, I became fascinated by the cellular and molecular responses of leaves exposed to high temperature and showed that the high-temperature-grown leaves were smaller and produced fewer cells mainly due to suppression of the core cell division process by the bHLH transcription factor Phytochrome Interacting Factor 4, PIF4, and TCP family transcription factor, TCP4.

Auxin-regulation of leaf growth

I originally became interested in studying organ growth regulation during my Ph.D. in Kris Vissenberg’s Lab at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. I was part of a project, ''A Systems Biology Approach of Leaf Morphogenesis'', where I focussed on auxin-regulation of leaf growth in Arabidopsis. While auxin is a plant hormone known to regulate virtually every aspect of plant growth and development, I studied how changes in auxin efflux proteins polarity influenced changes in auxin concentration locally and between source and sink tissues and its effect on cell division and growth in the leaves.

Please allow social and marketing cookies to show embedded content.

View content (opens www.youtube.com in a new tab)

High temperature effect on leaf development

Based on phenotyping and preliminary results from RNAseq, I became fascinated by the cellular and molecular responses of leaves exposed to high temperature and showed that the high-temperature-grown leaves were smaller and produced fewer cells mainly due to suppression of the core cell division process by the bHLH transcription factor Phytochrome Interacting Factor 4, PIF4, and TCP family transcription factor, TCP4.

Auxin-regulation of leaf growth

I originally became interested in studying organ growth regulation during my Ph.D. in Kris Vissenberg’s Lab at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. I was part of a project, ''A Systems Biology Approach of Leaf Morphogenesis'', where I focussed on auxin-regulation of leaf growth in Arabidopsis. While auxin is a plant hormone known to regulate virtually every aspect of plant growth and development, I studied how changes in auxin efflux proteins polarity influenced changes in auxin concentration locally and between source and sink tissues and its effect on cell division and growth in the leaves.

Teaching experience

  • Lectured for Part II Plant Sciences module - Plant signaling networks in growth and development (PLM1) | Michaelmas term | 2024-25 | University of Cambridge

    • L17:Auxin signalling: from auxin to transcription

    • L18:Perception and response to light stimuli

    • L19:Environmental control of hypocotyl growth

    • L21:Signal integration in growing organ

    • L22:Programme activation in growing organ

    • L23:Auxin dynamics guiding dynamic development

  • Over 16 hours of Cambridge University supervision for 5-16 students each for Plant and microbial sciences (PMS) Part 1B | 2023-24  & 2025-26 and Part IB PLM1 2024-25.
  • Additionally, I have trained several Master and Bachelor level students in the Robinson lab since my PhD. 

Other experience