Plants frequently encounter adverse growth conditions. Drought, extreme temperatures, soil contamination with salts or heavy metals, and pathogen infections are examples of environmental constraints that limit plant growth and development and thus crop performance. Our team combines the strengths of complementary multidisciplinary approaches to advance the understanding of mechanisms underlying stress tolerance and explore their potential for new crop improvement strategies.
Plant stress tolerance mechanisms
A multitude of stress-induced responses are required for acclimation to stress. Thus, we follow an integrative approach to decipher the multi-layered responses that are vital to stress resilience. Our team investigates how signal transduction regulates the coordinated response of metabolism and chromatin function (gene expression) to fluctuating and/or adverse environments which ultimately determines whether a plant is able to successfully acclimate. To obtain a comprehensive picture, we apply a combination of physiological, biochemical, and genetic approaches to unravel mechanisms underlying stress tolerance and explore their potential for innovative crop improvement strategies.
Antioxidative and central carbohydrate metabolism
Antioxidant metabolism and central carbohydrate metabolism play a central role in regulating adequate stress responses and thus successful acclimatisation. The intense regulatory interactions of these metabolic pathways are vital for the balance between growth and stress responses. Therefore, we are aiming at identifying, establishing and implementing metabolic targets, markers and fingerprints for improving crop resilience, complementing the development of genetic markers.
Selected Projects
| UNTWIST | Uncover and Promote Tolerance to Temperature and Water Stress in Camelina sativa | EU-H2020; https://www.untwist.eu/ |
| ROS | Plant Salt stress Tolerance: Interaction between oxidative signalling and the protein kinase ASKα" | FWF |
| POTEND Stress | Potato-endophyte interaction in response to complex abiotic stress | FWF |
