Kasper
VAN GELDEREN
Independent research group leader
Centre for Organismal Studies, Heidelberg, Germany
Plant light perception and signalling, phase separation and condensate formation, plant developmental plasticity.
My group focuses on the regulation of light perception and signalling in the plant nucleus. Phytochrome photoreceptors are crucial red light sensors affecting plant developmental plasticity. They can be found in almost all of the cells of the plant body, and within these cells, they cluster into subnuclear phase separated compartments, called photobodies, which are large protein bodies that help concentrate, aggregate and regulate the factors that determine how the plant reacts to light, temperature and other environmental factors. Furthermore, we study how the root can react to the shoot-perceived light perceived by the action of shoot-to-root mobile transcription factors. We make heavy use of confocal microscopy, proximity labelling, and structural and biophysical modelling.
We have the following projects
Understand how phytochrome photobodies form via sophisticated live imaging experiments and super resolution confocal microscopy. Furthermore, we use our imaing data in collaboration to perform biophysical modelling of phase separation.
We want to discover the composition of photobodies using proximity labelling, and how this drives phase separation using in vitro experiments. Of particular focus is the role of RNA and transcription regulation with regards to phyB photobodies.
We want to uncover the role of phytochrome photobodies in regulating light signalling, through single cell transcriptomics and molecular genetics.
A separate major project in the lab is describing the mechanism of shoot-root light signalling via the transport of the HY5 transcription factor. This also involves sophisticated live imaging, and root phenotyping.
Five Main Publications
Gibberellin transport affects lateral root growth through HY5 in response to far-red light
van Gelderen K, van der Velde K, Kang C, Hollander J, Koppenol A, Petropoulos O, Prasetyaningrum P, Akyüz T, and Pierik R. (2025) Plant Cell. 2025:37(9):koaf200. doi: 10.1093/plcell/koaf200
AGC kinases and MAB4/MEL proteins maintain PIN polarity by limiting lateral diffusion in plant cells
Glanc M & van Gelderen K*, Hörmayer L, Tan S, Naramoto S, Zhang X, Domjan D, Vcelarová L, Hauschild R, Johnson A, de Koning E, van Dop M, Rademacher E, Janson S, Wei X, Molnar G, Fendrych M, De Rybel B, Offringa R and Friml J (2021) Current Biology 31: 449-451. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.02.028 *Authors contributed equally
Far-Red Light Detection in the Shoot Regulates Lateral Root Development through the HY5 Transcription Factor
van Gelderen K, Kang C, Paalman R, Keuskamp D, Hayes S, and Pierik R (2018) The Plant Cell 30: 101–116. doi: 10.1105/tpc.17.00771
Light Signaling, Root Development, and Plasticity
van Gelderen K, Kang C, and Pierik R (2018) Plant Physiology 176: 1049–1060. doi: 10.1104/pp.17.01079
An INDEHISCENT-Controlled Auxin Response Specifies the Separation Layer in Early Arabidopsis Fruit
van Gelderen K, van Rongen M, Liu A, Otten A, and Offringa R (2016) Molecular Plant 9: 857–869. doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2016.03.005