View Profile

Dr Peter Etchells

Contact Dr Peter Etchells (email at peter.etchells@durham.ac.uk)

Research Interests

I have a long-standing interest in plant development, which I developed while studying at the University of Edinburgh, and as a researcher at the University of Oxford, the John Innes Centre and at the University of Manchester.

My current research focuses on understanding how plant vascular tissue is formed. The main conductive tissues in plants are the xylem and phloem. These tissues arise via cell divisions in a stem cell population that separates these two tissues. Cell division and differentiation occurs in a highly ordered manner. These high levels of organization make plant vasculature an ideal model for developmental biology. The rates of cell division and differentiation are influenced by a range of developmental cues. My work aims to identify these cues and determine how they interact during development.

Woody cell walls in the xylem are renewable resource. They are rich in sugar polymers, constitute the majority of plant biomass, and are an important carbin sink. As vascular meristems are responsible for generating most of the plant biomass, an understanding of vascular development will provide markers for breeding of bioenergy crops, and enable modulation of vascular developmental pathways to maximise wood formation.

Research Groups

Department of Biosciences

Selected Publications

Chapter in book

Etchells, J. P. & Turner, S. R. (2009). Lateral Meristems. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Wiley.

Edited book

de Lucas, Miguel & Etchells, J. Peter (2017). Xylem. Methods in Molecular Biology. Humana Press.

Journal Article

Smit, M., McGregor, S., Sun, H., Gough, C., Bågman, A.-M., Soyars, C. L., Kroon, J. T. M., Gaudinier, A., Williams, C. J., Yang, X., Nimchuk, Z. L., Weijers, D., Turner, S. R., Brady, S. M. & Etchells, J. P. (2020). A PXY-Mediated Transcriptional Network Integrates Signaling Mechanisms to Control Vascular Development in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell 32(2): 319-335.
Bagdassarian, K. S., Connor, K. A., Jermyn, I. H. & Etchells, J. P. (2020). Versatile method for quantifying and analyzing morphological differences in experimentally obtained images. Plant Signaling & Behavior 15: 1693092.
Wang, Ning, Bagdassarian, K. S., Doherty, R. E., Kroon, J. T., Connor, K. A., Wang, X. Y., Wang, W., Jermyn, I. H., Turner, S. R. & Etchells, J. P. (2019). Organ-specific genetic interactions between paralogues of the PXY and ER receptor kinases enforce radial patterning in Arabidopsis vascular tissue. Development 146(10): 177105.
Campbell, L., Etchells, J. P., Cooper, M., Kumar, M. & Turner, S. R. (2018). An essential role for Abscisic acid in the regulation of xylem fibre differentiation. Development 145: dev.161992.
Turco, G.M., Kajala, K., Kunde-Ramamoorthy, G., Ngan, C-Y., Olson, A., Deshphande, S., Tolkunov, D., Waring, B., Stelpflug, S., Klein, P., Schmutz, J., Kaeppler, S., Ware, D., Wei, C-L., Etchells, J.P. & Brady, S.M. (2017). DNA methylation and gene expression regulation associated with vascularization in Sorghum bicolor. New Phytologist 214(3): 1213-1229.
Guo, X., Wang, J., Gardner, M., Fukuda, H., Kondo, Y., Etchells, J. P., Wang, X. & Goellner Mitchum, M. (2017). Identification of cyst nematode B-type CLE peptides and modulation of the vascular stem cell pathway for feeding cell formation. PLoS Pathogens 13(2): e1006142.
Etchells, J. Peter, Mishra, Laxmi S., Kumar, Manoj, Campbell, Liam & Turner, Simon R. (2015). Wood Formation in Trees Is Increased by Manipulating PXY-Regulated Cell Division. Current Biology 25(8): 1050-1055.
Etchells, J. P., Provost, C. M., Mishra, L. & Turner, S. R. (2013). WOX4 and WOX14 act downstream of the PXY receptor kinase to regulate plant vascular proliferation independently of any role in vascular organisation. Development 140(10): 2224-2234
Etchells, J. P., Moore, L., Jiang, W. Z., Prescott, H., Capper, R., Saunders, N., Bhatt, A. M. & Dickinson, H. G. (2012). A role for BELLRINGER in cell wall development is supported by loss-of-function phenotypes. BMC Plant Biology 12: 212.
Etchells, J. P., Provost, C. M. & Turner, S. T. (2012). Plant vascular cell division is maintained by an interaction between PXY and ethylene signalling. PLoS Genetics 8(11): e1002997.
Etchells, J. P. & Turner, S. T. (2010). The PXY-CLE41 receptor ligand pair defines a multifunctional pathway that controls the rate and orientation of vascular cell division. Development 137(5): 767-774.
Atanassov, I. I., Atanassov, I. I., Etchells, J. P. & Turner, S. R. (2009). A simple, flexible and efficient PCR-fusion/Gateway cloning procedure for gene fusion, site-directed mutagenesis, short sequence insertion and domain deletions and swaps. Plant Methods
Pinon, V., Etchells, J. P., Rossignol, P., Collier, S. A., Arroyo, J. M., Martienssen, R. A. & Byrne, M. E. (2008). Three PIGGYBACK genes that specifically influence leaf patterning encode ribosomal proteins. Development 135(7): 1315-1324.
Bhatt, A. M., Etchells, J. P., Canales, C., Lagodienko, A. & Dickinson, H. (2004). VAAMANA – A Bel 1 like Homeodomain Protein, interacts with KNOX proteins BP and STM and Regulates Inflorescence Stem Growth in Arabidopsis. Gene 103-111.

Other (Print)

Bagdassarian, Kristine S, Brown, Catherine M, Jones, Ewan T & Etchells, Peter (2020). Connections in the cambium, receptors in the ring. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 57: 96-103.
Ramachandran, P., Carlsbecker, A. & Etchells, J. P. (2017). Class III HD-ZIPs govern vascular cell fate: an HD view on patterning and differentiation. Journal of Experimental Botany 68(1): 55-69.
Etchells, J. P. & Turner, S. R. (2017). Realizing pipe dreams – a detailed picture of vascular development. Journal of Experimental Botany 68(1): 1-4.
Etchells, J. Peter, Smit, Margot E., Gaudinier, Allison, Williams, Clara J. & Brady, Siobhan M. (2016). A brief history of the TDIF-PXY signalling module: balancing meristem identity and differentiation during vascular development. New Phytologist 209(2): 474-484.
Etchells, J. P. & Turner, S. R. (2010). Orientation of vascular cell divisions in Arabidopsis. Plant Signaling & Behavior 5(6): 730.

Patent

Turner, S.R. Mishra, L.S. Kumar, M. & Etchells, J.P. (2016). Generation of biomass. US20180037900A1. Application filed: 1 September 2016. Granted: 30 November 1999
Turner, S.R. & Etchells, J.P. (2014). Method for the alteration of plants using CLE polypeptides/peptides. US10023878B2. Application filed: 15 April 2014. Granted: 17 July 2018

Show all publications