Mr. Kentaro P. Iwata, a third-year doctoral student at the Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, along with Prof. Hidehiro Fukaki and Prof. Kimitsune Ishizaki (Kobe University), Associate Prof. Takayuki Shimizu (Nara Women’s University), Prof. Tatsuru Masuda (The University of Tokyo), Prof. Yuuki Kondo (Osaka University), and their collaborators, have discovered that the protein “RLF”, which plays a crucial role in plant organ development, is conserved across both early-diverging land plants such as liverworts and more recently diverged flowering plants.

Journal: New Phytologist
Title: Evolutionary-conserved RLF, a cytochrome b5-like heme-binding protein, regulates organ development in Marchantia polymorpha
Authors: Kentaro P. Iwata¹, Takayuki Shimizu^2,3, Yuuki Sakai¹, Tomoyuki Furuya^1,4,5, Hinatamaru Fukumura¹, Yuki Kondo^1,5, Tatsuru Masuda³, Kimitsune Ishizaki¹, and Hidehiro Fukaki^1
1Graduate School of Science, Kobe University
²Faculty of Science, Nara Women’s University
³Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo
⁴College of Life Sciences, Ritsumeikan University
⁵Graduate School of Science, Osaka University

DOI: 10.1111/nph.70181

Press Releases:
Kobe University: https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/ja/news/article/20250526-66674/
EurekAlert!: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1084334
The University of Tokyo: https://www.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/info/news/topics/20250526000100.html