About

Motivation

The societal challenges posed by a growing human population and climate change necessitate technical advances in plant science. Plant cells are fundamental organizational units that mediate the production, transport, and storage of our primary food sources and sequester a significant portion of the world’s carbon. A comprehensive understanding of plant cell structure and function at a molecular level is essential to uncover the mechanisms by which plants produce the services upon which we depend.

Today’s innovations in systems biology, sensors and biosensors, data science and artificial intelligence, gene editing, precision breeding, and the microbiome position us to make unprecedented discoveries in plant science. However, the plant biology community lacks a complete picture of the location of molecular machineries within cells, their distribution among various cells, and their dynamics in real time.​ ​

  • Color merge reconstruction of hypocotyl epidermal cells. The red channel shows plastid autofluorescence. Photo credit: D. Ehrhardt
  • Pin1-YFP (green) and DR5::RFP (red) in the maize leaf epidermis. Photo credit: Leiboff Lab
  • Bright field image of a cross section of a Populous tremula dormant leaf bud. Photo credit: S. Giacomello and B.Terebieniec
  • Arabidopsis thaliana hypocotyls. Photo credit: C. Seyfferth
  • Epidermal plasma membrane in green and nuclei (H2B-TFP) in blue, together with chlorophyll autofluorescence in red. Photo credit: Kate Harline (Roeder Lab)
  • DR5::RFP epifluorescence in the maize leaf. Photo credit: Leiboff Lab
  • Populus tremula x tremuloides mature stems. Photo credit: C. Seyfferth
  • Pin1-YFP (yellow) and DR5::RFP (red) in the maize shoot apex. Photo credit: Leiboff Lab

Goals

The PCA will map cellular and sub-cellular protein localization patterns, track the dynamic interactions between proteins, identify the molecular components of cellular substructures, discern complete states and transitions of specialized cell types, and integrate these disparate data points in order to generate testable models of cellular function.

To successfully implement the PCA Initiative, we convened leaders from imaging, proteomics, genomics, nanotechnology, and data science to a Kick-Off Workshop to discuss how to best build this community resource.

PCA Workshop 2020

How to Join the PCA

If you are interested in staying up to date on PCA news, events, and opportunities contact us to join our Slack Workspace and/or email list and follow us on Bluesky, X(Twitter), YouTube, and LinkedIn. 

If you would like to become more involved in the Plant Cell Atlas you may ask about joining a PCA committee using the Contact page. Learn more about the responsibilities and benefits of being a part of a PCA committee in our Bylaws. 

NSF RCN Affiliate Institutions

In June 2021 the PCA received funding from the National Science Foundation to build a Research Coordination Network (Award #2052590). The goal behind this funding is to build a diverse scientific community that will set standards for generating and integrating large plant data sets, create high-quality resources and tools to advance plant science, and provide excellent networking and interdisciplinary training opportunities for early career scientists. Here we showcase the various institutions that our core network participants hail from. To learn more about the diverse scientists that make up the core of our community please visit our People page listing the NSF RCN Committee members.