Roots of many plants produce a sheath of cells attached to the tip by a soluble polysaccharide matrix. These cells are tightly appressed to the root until hit with a flush of water. Upon exposure to water, the cells quickly disperse into suspension. Because they form the border between root tips and the surrounding environment, these cells are termed border cells. Border cells are viable even after detaching from the root and are important in defense and symbiotic relationships.

The current project seeks to characterize border cells from Medicago truncatula roots and compare them to adjacent yet spatially resolved root tips. The project includes transcriptomic, metabolomic and proteomic methods of analyses and has initially focused on constitutive differences between these root tissues. Metabolomics will also be utilized to monitor changes in root tissues after elicitation with the pathogenic fungus Phymatotrichum omnivorum and the symbiotic fungal microbe Glomus intraradices and Sinorhizobium meliloti, a bacterial symbiont.