Louis Grillet, Assistant Professor
Education
2009–2012 Ph.D., Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology and Physiology, INRAE, Montpellier, France – Advisor: Dr. Stéphane Mari
2007–2009 Master’s Degree in Plant Biology (University of Rennes, France).
2006–2007 Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Biochemistry (University of Nantes, France).
2004-2006 European Engineer Degree in Plant Production (CAH Dronten, The Netherlands)
Professional experience
2020–now Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Chemistry, National Taiwan University
2013–2020 Postdoc, Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica Advisor: Dr. Wolfgang Schmidt
2006-2013 Various internships including 1 year in the laboratory of Dr. Henk Schat (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 3 months in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Aarts (Wageningen, The Netherlands), 6 months at the INRA (Le Rheu, France), and summer jobs at the Laboratoire de Touraine, department of spectrometry (Parçay-Meslay, France)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
As sessile organisms, plants cannot move to escape adverse conditions. They instead attempt to modify their immediate environment by secreting metabolites. A typical example of this lies in the nutrition in essential trace metal elements such as iron, zinc and copper. While these elements are generally present in sufficient amount in soils, their solubility is low, causing problems of deficiencies that are deleterious for crop yield. As an adaptation, plants evolved to secrete molecules that can enhance the bioavailability of these elements, in particular iron. The ability of plants to efficiently acquire iron at high pH is the major determinant of their calcicole behavior. Interestingly, the inability to grow in such conditions can be rescued by the presence of a calcicole neighboring plant, demonstrating that in these iron-scarce conditions, plants collaborate rather than compete. We are interested in understanding the physiological and biochemical effect of root-secreted molecules, a small subset of the hundreds thousands metabolites produced by plants.
We study different plant species for different purposes. Our current models are mungbean, rice and Arabidopsis for the speed and access to molecular biology tools. Different species secrete different molecules and we are interested in understanding how plant can interact with each other in the field. Working on crops also allows us to translate our findings into applications that can hopefully prove useful for agriculture.
The topics we are studying are related to metal and nutrient transport and chemistry in plants. The applications range from removing pollutants from soil using plants (i.e. phytoremediation), improving nutrient use efficiency, and undertstanding how plants regulate their nutrition in situation of competition with other living organisms.
LAB MEMBERS
Amanda Yan-Tzi Huang
Lab Manager
Lisa En-Jung Hsieh
Post-doc
Ching-Yuan Zhang
Master's student
Leo Chu-Han Cheng
Master's student
Meng-Yang Chen
Master’s student
Cleo Niehaus
Master’s student
Yvonne Kartolo
Undergraduate student
Yu-Hsiang Hung
Undergraduate student
Tong-Yu Chang
Master’s student
Hari Rusli
Master’s student
PUBLICATIONS
- Hsieh EJ, Rusli MH, Liao SW, Tseng CH, Chang CY, Wang SL, Yang TC, Chan YT, Shih YH, Hong CY, Grillet L. (2025) L-DOPA elicits iron deficiency response through root-to-shoot signaling and independently of the canonical regulatory pathway. New Phytologist, https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.70823
- Wu PH, Grillet L, Lin YF, Yeh KC, Hseu ZY. (2025) Physiological responses of pak choi (Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis (L.) Hanelt) to cerium and yttrium in two acidic soils with contrasting textures. Scientific Reports, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-32493-x
- Han CJ, Hseu ZY, Wu PH, Grillet L, Ko CH, Shelomi M. (2025) Coconut rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes rhinoceros (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), larval frass as plant fertilizer. Botanical Studies 66:22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40529-025-00459-x
- Chang CY, Hsieh EJ, Wang SL, Grillet L* (2025). L-DOPA promotes cadmium tolerance and modulates iron deficiency genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Physiologia Plantarum, 177:e70024. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.70024
- Longkumer T, Grillet L, Chang HY, Lường TC, Chen CY, Putra H, Schmidt W, Verslues P* (2024). Insertion of YFP at P5CS1 and AFL1 shows the potential, and potential complications, of gene tagging for functional analyses of stress-related proteins. Plant, Cell & Environment, 47:2011–2026. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14861
- Grillet L, Hsieh EJ, Schmidt W* (2023). Transcriptome analysis of iron over‐accumulating Arabidopsis genotypes uncover putative retrograde signaling. The Plant Genome, e20411:1-16. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20411
- Hsieh EJ, Liao SW, Chang CY, Tseng CH, Wang SL, Grillet L* (2023). L-DOPA induces iron accumulation in roots of Ipomoea aquatica and Arabidopsis thaliana in a pH-dependent manner. Botanical Studies, 64:24. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40529-023-00396-7
- Chen CH, Huang YM, Grillet L, Hsieh YC, Yang YW, Lo KY* (2023). Gallium maltolate shows synergism with cisplatin and activates nucleolar stress and ferroptosis in human breast carcinoma cells. Cellular Oncology, 46:1127-1142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13402-023-00804-x
- Castro Rodríguez R, Escudero V, Reguera M, Gil Díez P, Quintana J, Prieto RI, Kumar RK, Brear E, Grillet L, Wen J, Mysore KS, Walker EL, Smith PMC, Imperial J, González Guerrero M* (2021) Medicago truncatula Yellow Stripe-Like7 encodes a peptide transporter required for symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Plant, Cell & Environment, 44(6):1908-1920. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14059
- Clemens S, Eroglu S, Grillet L, Nozoye T* (2021) Metal Transport in Plants. Frontiers in Plant Science, 12:304.
- Grillet L, Schmidt W* (2019) Iron acquisition strategies in land plants: not so different after all. New Phytologist, 224:11-18.
- Grillet L, Lan P, Li W, Mokkapati G, Schmidt W* (2018) IRON MAN is a ubiquitous family of peptides that control iron transport in plants. Nature Plants, 4:953-963.
- Grillet L, Schmidt W* (2017) The multiple facets of root iron reduction. Journal of Experimental Botany 68:5021-5027.
- Flis P, Ouerdane L, Grillet L, Curie C, Mari S, Lobinski R* (2016) Inventory of metal complexes circulating in plant fluids: a reliable method based on HPLC coupled with dual elemental and high resolution molecular mass spectrometric detection. New Phytologist 211:1129-1141.
- Grillet L, Ouerdane L, Flis P, Hoang MTT, Isaure MP, Lobinski R, Curie C, Mari S* (2014) Ascorbate Efflux as a New Strategy for Iron Reduction and Transport in Plants. Journal of Biological Chemistry 289:2515- 2525.
- Grillet L, Mari S., Schmidt W* (2013) Iron in seeds – loading pathways and subcellular localization. Frontiers in Plant Science 4:535.
- Roschzttardtz H, Grillet L, Isaure MP, Conejero G, Ortega R, et al. (2011) Plant Cell Nucleolus as a Hot Spot for Iron. Journal of Biological Chemistry 286:27863-27866.
- Gravot A, Grillet L, Wagner G, Jubault M, Lariagon C, et al. (2011) Genetic and physiological analysis of the relationship between partial resistance to clubroot and tolerance to trehalose in Arabidopsis thaliana. New Phytologist 191:1083-1094.
FORMER MEMBERS
Francis Xiao-Wei Liao
Graduated
Jenny Zheng-Lin Kuo
Undergraduate student
Eric Bao-Xiu Luo
Graduated
Elena Sato
Undergraduate student
LAB ACTIVITIES
Congratulations to Chu-Han for winning the best poster award at the ISINIP conference thanks to his work on the modifications of auxin distribution by allelochemicals!
Ching-Yuan and Chu-Han spent the summer in the group of Dr. Cathy Curie and Stéphane Mari at IPSiM in Montpellier, France. They learnt about microscopy, protein gels, and ICP-OES. This is partly funded by the NTU Overseas Internship program.
Participation to the 9th International Symposium on Metallomics in London. The venue was trully amazing and the content of the conference was great! Looking forward to ISM10 in Paris…
Visit of the LPCV group directed by Dr. Stéphane Ravanel at UGA, including the experimental site of the Jardins du Lautaret. Snow, sun and marmots!
We are thankful to the OIA to grant us an International Collaboration Seed Funding!
Congratulations to Ching-Yuan for meeting with the vice president William Lai!
National Taiwan University, Department of Agricultural Chemistry.
No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, Taiwan 106
Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and Metabolites 