Current Research

• Root trait responses to soil physical conditions, including changes in border cell production, exudate production, changes in root meristem and overall root structure.  
• Variation in responses to physical constraints between barley mutants and cultivars.
• Genetic controls of border cell production.
• Utilisation of confocal microscopy and computer vision techniques to develop tools for measuring cell expansion and root elongation.

Research History

• Movement, replication and suppression of Tobacco mosaic virus and Tobacco rattle virus in tobacco and Arabidopsis.  Utilisation of Tobacco rattle virus as a vector for inducing gene silencing of endogenous root development genes (Mylnefield Research Services).
• Growth and development effects of cell wall carbohydrates (University College London).

Recent Publications

• Bengough, A.G., Hans, J., Bransby, M.F., and Valentine, T.A. 2009. PIV as a method for quantifying root cell growth and particle displacement in confocal images. Microscopy Research and Technique (in press).
• Roberts, T.J., McKenna, S.J., Du, C.J., Wuyts, N., Valentine, T.A., and Bengough, A.G. 2009. Estimating the motion of plant root cells from in vivo confocal laser scanning microscopy images. Machine Vision and Applications. (doi: 10.1007/s00138-009-0207-x)
• Valentine, T.A., Randall, E., Wypijewski, K., Chapman, S., Jones, J.T., and Oparka, K.J. 2007. Delivery of macromolecules to plant parasitic nematodes using a tobacco rattle virus vector. Plant Biotechnology Journal 5, 827-834.
• Bengough, A.G., Bransby, M.F., Hans, J., McKenna, S.J., Roberts, T.J., and Valentine, T.A. 2006. Root responses to soil physical conditions; growth dynamics from field to cell. Journal of Experimental Botany 57, 437-447.
• Valentine, T.A., Shaw, J., Blok, V.C., Phillips, M.S., Oparka, K.J., and Lacomme, C. 2005. Efficient virus-induced gene silencing in roots using a modified tobacco rattle virus vector. Plant Physiology 136, 3999-4009.
• Humphris, S.N., Bengough, A.G., Griffiths, B.S., Killham, K., Rodger, S., Stubbs, V., Valentine, T.A., and Young, I.M. 2005. Root cap influences root colonisation by Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 on maize. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 54, 123-130.
• Valentine, T.A., Roberts, I.M., and Oparka, K.J. 2002. Inhibition of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) in lateral roots is dependant on the propagation of a meristem-derived signal. Protoplasma 219, 184-196.
• Gillespie, T., Boevink, P., Haupt, S., Roberts, A.G., Toth, R., Valentine, T.A., Chapman, S.N., and Oparka, K.J. 2002. Functional analysis of a DNA-shuffled movement protein reveals that microtubules are dispensable for the cell-to-cell movement of tobacco mosaic virus. Plant Cell 14, 1207-1222.

Posters

(View all posters)

Attachment	Size
Role of border cells in root growth and rhizosphere interactions	420.13 KB
Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: In-vivo segmentation and tracking of cells using confocal microscopy	230.65 KB
Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: Optical flow analysis of time-lapse confocal microscopy images	209.85 KB
Root growth responses to soil physical properties	192.39 KB
Does root morphology and nutrient acquisition explain life history traits in ecotypes of Capsella bursa-pastoris?	175.16 KB
Efficient viral-induced gene silencing in roots using a modified tobacco rattle virus	103.48 KB
Viral-induced gene silencing (VIGS) vector development for functional studies in crop plants	154.46 KB
Viral-induced gene silencing (VIGS) vector development for functional studies in Solanaceae	192.55 KB
Root growth responses to soil physical conditions	125.51 KB
How does root morphology and response to nutrients relate to life history traits in ecotypes of Capsella bursa-pastoris?	277.99 KB
How do cultivar mixtures perform under defined soil tillage regimes?	411.09 KB
Genetic variation and interactions of root traits involved in plant:soil physical interactions	134.99 KB
Plant growth responses to soil physical constraints	203.87 KB
Defining the soil for controlled environments and in the field	897 KB
SCRI examples
PlantVis: Quantitative motion analysis of time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy images: application to plant root growth	962.38 KB
Development of Methods for Visualising Root-Particle Interactions	4.45 MB