Professor Henrik Jönsson is Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory and Professor of Computational Morphodynamics.
Henrik received his masters (1997) and PhD (2002) degrees in Theoretical Physics from Lund University, Sweden, where he worked in the Complex Systems group, supervised by Bo Söderberg. He continued with post-doctoral work at Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology in the Barbara Wold Laboratory under guidance of Eric Mjolsness. He became Assistant Professor in 2008 at the Computational Biology and Biological Physics group at Lund University, and joined SLCU as a group leader in September 2011. In 2014, Henrik was appointed Professor of Computational Morphodynamics and Associate Director at SLCU and then SLCU Director in 2020. Henrik is on the Editorial Advisory Board of in silico Plants (isP) and academic editor for PLoS ONE and Journal of Theoretical Biology.
Research Interests
The focus of my research is to develop Computational Morphodynamics models at the cellular level describing multicellular tissues such as the shoot apical meristem. The models are developed in close collaboration with experimental groups and describe the dynamics of gene regulatory networks, hormone transport and signalling, cell growth and division, and mechanical properties. Integral for the research is the iterative evaluation of the models and their parameters to new experimental data, mainly in the form of live microscopy data.
One focus is on the understanding of the development of new primordia at the periphery of the shoot apex, where the phytohormone auxin is focused to the sites where new organs form, and this is accomplished via an intricate feedback to its own transport. At the same time physical stresses can provide the required intercellular connection for the regulated transport. We also suggest that stresses are sensed when creating new fibers, such that primordia growth becomes regulated and correlated with the positioning. The models we develop hence require a mechanistic description of molecular reactions transport and signalling, physical stresses and growth, and the possibility of interactions in between.
Another problem we are studying is the regulation and plasticity of the cells in the shoot apical meristem, which keeps its general cell differentiation pattern throughout the life of a plant, even if the cells are replaced during the symplastic growth where cells are moving out of the meristem tissue. We have focused on developing models for gene regulation and intercellular signalling, where the experimentally known CLAVATA-WUSCHEL negative feedback provides the core of the network. We develop models and optimise and evaluate model parameters towards large sets of perturbation experiments, where our approach focus on regions of parameters to describe the model network behavior. Also of interest is the receptor cross-talk that is part of this regulatory system.
Key Publications
Recent Publications:
N Bhatia, H Åhl, H Jönsson, MG Heisler (2019) Quantitative analysis of auxin sensing in leaf primordia argues against proposed role in regulating leaf dorsoventrality. eLife 8, e39298. doi:10.7554/eLife.39298
FB Daher, Y Chen, B Bozorg, J Clough, H Jönsson, SA Braybrook (2018) Anisotropic growth is achieved through the additive mechanical effect of material anisotropy and elastic asymmetry elife 7, e38161 doi:10.7554/eLife.38161
J Gruel, J Deichmann, B Landrein, T Hitchcock, H Jönsson (2018) The interaction of transcription factors controls the spatial layout of plant aerial stem cell niches. NPJ systems biology and applications 4 (1), 36 https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1038/s41540-018-0072-1
V Mirabet, P Krupinski, O Hamant, EM Meyerowitz, H Jönsson (2018) The self-organization of plant microtubules inside the cell volume yields their cortical localization, stable alignment, and sensitivity to external cues PLoS computational biology 14 (2), e1006011 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006011
B Landrein, P Formosa-Jordan, A Malivert, C Schuster, CW Melnyk (2018) Nitrate modulates stem cell dynamics in Arabidopsis shoot meristems through cytokinins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (6), 1382-1387 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718670115
HM Meyer*, J Teles*, P Formosa-Jordan*, Y Refahi, R San-Bento, G Ingram, H Jönsson^, JCW Locke^, AHK Roeder^ (2017) Fluctuations of the transcription factor ATML1 generate the pattern of giant cells in the Arabidopsis sepal, eLife e19131. *joint first authors ^joint corresponding authors
Cell size and growth regulation in the Arabidopsis thaliana apical stem cell niche
L Willis*, Y Refahi*, R Wightman, B Landrein, J Teles, KC Huang, EM Meyerowitz, H Jönsson (2016)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (51), E8238-E8246. *joint first authors
N Bhatia, B Bozorg, A Larsson, C Ohno, H Jönsson, MG Heisler (2016),
Auxin acts through MONOPTEROS to regulate plant cell polarity and pattern phyllotaxis, Current Biology 26 (23), 3202-3208.
B Bozorg, P Krupinski, H Jönsson (2016)
A continuous growth model for plant tissue, Physical Biology 13 (6), 065002.
BI Je, J Gruel, YK Lee, P Bommert, ED Arevalo, AL Eveland, Q Wu, A Goldshmidt, R Meeley, M Bartlett, M Komatsu, H Sakai, H Jönsson, D Jackson (2016),
Signaling from maize organ primordia via FASCIATED EAR3 regulates stem cell proliferation and yield traits, Nature genetics 48 (7), 785-791.
J Gruel, B Landrein, P Tarr, C Schuster, Y Refahi, A Sampathkumar, O Hamant, EM Meyerowitz, H Jönsson (2016)
An epidermis-driven mechanism positions and scales stem cell niches in plants, Science Advances 2, e1500989.
Reviews
Shifting foundations: the mechanical cell wall and development
S Braybrook, H Jönsson (2016)
Current Opinion in Plant Biology 29, 115-120
Quantitative analysis of auxin sensing in leaf primordia argues against proposed role in regulating leaf dorsoventrality
N Bhatia, H Åhl, H Jönsson, MG Heisler
eLife 8, e39298
Anisotropic growth is achieved through the additive mechanical effect of material anisotropy and elastic asymmetry
FB Daher, Y Chen, B Bozorg, J Clough, H Jönsson, SA Braybrook
Elife 7, e38161
The interaction of transcription factors controls the spatial layout of plant aerial stem cell niches
J Gruel, J Deichmann, B Landrein, T Hitchcock, H Jönsson
NPJ systems biology and applications 4 (1), 36
The self-organization of plant microtubules inside the cell volume yields their cortical localization, stable alignment, and sensitivity to external cues
V Mirabet, P Krupinski, O Hamant, EM Meyerowitz, H Jönsson, ...
PLoS computational biology 14 (2), e1006011
Nitrate modulates stem cell dynamics in Arabidopsis shoot meristems through cytokinins
B Landrein, P Formosa-Jordan, A Malivert, C Schuster, CW Melnyk, ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (6), 1382-1387