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Project

Unravelling the regulatory roles of defective invertases in plants

Mankind is becoming increasingly dependent on plant production, not only for staple foods, but also for energy, fine chemicals, functional foods, drugs and vaccines. Four KULeuven labs have joined forces to contribute to the development of superior crops with higher yields and biomass through optimization of carbon allocation and stress tolerance. Plants use glucose and sucrose #signals# to coordinate metabolism with environmental and hormonal signals for optimal growth and development. Although sucrose-specific signalling pathways exist in plants, the sucrose sensor(s) involved in the process have not yet been identified. Invertases bind and degrade sucrose and play an important role in carbohydrate partitioning. The discovery of several catalytically defective invertases suggests that they could act as sucrose #sensors# or fulfil other regulatory roles. This project aims at unravelling the exact role of defective invertases in plants. In particular, it will be investigated whethersucrose can bind to these invertases by generating sucrose-protein complexes, solving their three-dimensional structure using X-ray crystallography as well as by docking and molecular dynamics simulations. These studies will be complemented by protein interaction and cellular and whole plant molecular, biochemical and physiological studies of sucrose signalling in Arabidopsis thaliana knock-out mutants and plants overexpressingwild-type and mutant proteins.
Datum:1 okt 2010 →  1 okt 2014
Trefwoorden:Plants
Disciplines:Engineering van biomaterialen, Biologische systeemtechnologie, Biomateriaal engineering, Biomechanische ingenieurswetenschappen, Andere (bio)medische ingenieurswetenschappen, Milieu ingenieurswetenschappen en biotechnologie, Industriële biotechnologie, Andere biotechnologie, bio-en biosysteem ingenieurswetenschappen, Plantenbiologie, Productie van landbouwgewassen, Tuinbouwproductie, Algemene biologie
Project type:PhD project