Gabriel Ferreras Garrucho
Postdoctoral Scholar, Bioengineering
Bio
Gabriel grew up in Seville, Spain, and earned a BA in Biochemistry and Biotechnology from the University of Seville, where he was introduced to plant molecular biology working on the interplay between flowering signalling and autophagy in Arabidopsis. He then moved to the United Kingdom to do a PhD in Plant Sciences in the University of Cambridge, in the group of Uta Paszkowski, working on the spatio-temporal regulation of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis signalling in rice, followed by a Postdoctoral Researcher position in the same group optimising single-nuclei RNA-sequencing for the mutualism between rice and mycorrhizal fungi. In the Brophy lab, Gabriel is excited to work on the discovery and validation of cell-type-specific enhancers in sorghum using a combination of single-nuclei multi-omics, machine learning methods and high-throughput screens in protoplasts and in planta.
Contact
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4525-0439All Publications
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Spatiotemporal regulation of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis at cellular resolution.
The Plant cell
2026; 38 (6)
Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis develops through fungal colonization of root epidermal and cortical cells, culminating in the formation of arbuscules, transient, tree-like intracellular hyphal structures for nutrient exchange. To dissect the complexity of AM establishment in rice (Oryza sativa) roots colonized by Rhizophagus irregularis, we conducted spatial transcriptomics of plant and fungal genes at single-cell resolution. This revealed differences in transcriptional activity between fungal structures and reprogramming of plant cell-identity markers upon colonization. Furthermore, cells hosting similarly developed arbuscules showed striking transcriptional heterogeneity, suggesting hidden functional diversity at the individual cell level. For stage-resolved profiling of translation, we used AM-stage specific Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification RNA sequencing (TRAP-seq) with promoters active at discrete stages of symbiosis or arbuscule development. This revealed extensive spatiotemporal changes in the ribosome-bound transcript population, including sets of phosphate, nitrogen, and carbon transporters and regulators with specific enrichment and depletion patterns at different stages of arbuscule development. Rice transcripts encoding cell wall biosynthesis genes and defense markers were present in low abundance at early stages but highly abundant at late stages of the arbuscule lifespan, supporting a host-driven shift toward arbuscule termination. Together, these findings highlight the nuanced dynamic regulation of AM symbiosis at the cellular level, refining our understanding of how nutrient exchange and fungal development are coordinated in space and time.
View details for DOI 10.1093/plcell/koag133
View details for PubMedID 42108419
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC13237562
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Integrating single-cell omic techniques to resolve the spatio-temporal complexity of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis.
Journal of experimental botany
2025
Abstract
Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis (AMS) is a ubiquitous and ancient interaction between plant root systems and fungi of the Glomeromycotina subphylum. The resulting relationship is mutually beneficial and deeply intimate where the fungus intracellularly colonises root cortex cells to receive organic carbon and deliver minerals and water to the plant. Fungal colonisation of plant roots and cells is extremely dynamic and asynchronous across the root system. Symbiosis development must therefore result from spatio-temporally fine-tuned molecular control mechanisms of plant and fungus. Although the plant genetic program underpinning AMS has been extensively studied, little is known about its dynamic regulation across root cell layers and developmental stages of the association. Thus, many questions remain outstanding: how do different cell-types transcriptionally respond to AMS, how are distinct cell-type specific regulatory states coordinated, and what are the transcriptional activities in the fungus associated with discrete stages of root colonisation? The advent of single cell-based techniques now enables the high-resolution analysis to address these questions. In this review, we recapitulate the current knowledge on the spatio-temporal control of AMS, we evaluate the relevance of existing spatial datasets to AMS research and provide new perspectives for future study.
View details for DOI 10.1093/jxb/eraf404
View details for PubMedID 41029997
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Regulation of floral senescence in Arabidopsis by coordinated action of CONSTANS and jasmonate signaling.
Molecular plant
2022; 15 (11): 1710-1724
Abstract
In Arabidopsis, photoperiodic flowering is controlled by the regulatory hub gene CONSTANS (CO), whereas floral organ senescence is regulated by the jasmonates (JAs). Because these processes are chronologically ordered, it remains unknown whether there are common regulators of both processes. In this study, we discovered that CO protein accumulates in Arabidopsis flowers after floral induction, and it displays a diurnal pattern in floral organs different from that in the leaves. We observed that altered CO expression could affect flower senescence and abscission by interfering with JA response, as shown by petal-specific transcriptomic analysis as well as CO overexpression in JA synthesis and signaling mutants. We found that CO has a ZIM (ZINC-FINGER INFLORESCENCE MERISTEM) like domain that mediates its interaction with the JA response repressor JAZ3 (jasmonate ZIM-domain 3). Their interaction inhibits the repressor activity of JAZ3, resulting in activation of downstream transcription factors involved in promoting flower senescence. Furthermore, we showed that CO, JAZ3, and the E3 ubiquitin ligase COI1 (Coronatine Insensitive 1) could form a protein complex in planta, which promotes the degradation of both CO and JAZ3 in the presence of JAs. Taken together, our results indicate that CO, a key regulator of photoperiodic flowering, is also involved in promoting flower senescence and abscission by augmenting JA signaling and response. We propose that coordinated recruitment of photoperiodic and JA signaling pathways could be an efficient way for plants to chronologically order floral processes and ensure the success of offspring production.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.molp.2022.09.017
View details for PubMedID 36153646
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A mycorrhiza-associated receptor-like kinase with an ancient origin in the green lineage.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
2021; 118 (25)
Abstract
Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are key cell signaling components. The rice ARBUSCULAR RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE 1 (OsARK1) regulates the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) association postarbuscule development and belongs to an undefined subfamily of RLKs. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed that ARK1 has an ancient paralogue in spermatophytes, ARK2 Single ark2 and ark1/ark2 double mutants in rice showed a nonredundant AM symbiotic function for OsARK2 Global transcriptomics identified a set of genes coregulated by the two RLKs, suggesting that OsARK1 and OsARK2 orchestrate symbiosis in a common pathway. ARK lineage proteins harbor a newly identified SPARK domain in their extracellular regions, which underwent parallel losses in ARK1 and ARK2 in monocots. This protein domain has ancient origins in streptophyte algae and defines additional overlooked groups of putative cell surface receptors.
View details for DOI 10.1073/pnas.2105281118
View details for PubMedID 34161289
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC8237591