The molecular evolution of C4 photosynthesis and the biogenesis of the photosynthetic machinery in thylakoid membranes of higher plants are the two major research interests of my laboratory. We are also interested in using genomic technologies to identify and characterise the genetic basis of agronomically important traits in crops.
(1) Molecular evolution of C4 photosynthesis
The C4 photosynthetic pathways is a high-efficiency mode of photosynthesis and is distinguished from "normal" C3 photosynthesis by a suite of anatomical, biochemical and physiological properties. C4 plants are of polyphyletic origin indicating that in genetic terms the evolution from C3 to C4 photosynthesis must have been rather easy. We wish to understand the genetic alterations that accompanied the path from C3 to C4 photosynthesis and are using the genus Flaveria as our evolutionary model system. The gained information will be applied to engineer the C4 photosynthetic pathway into current C3 crops, i.e. rice.
(2) Biogenesis of thylakoid membranes in higher plants
Thylakoid membranes are key places for energy conversion in plant cells. They are composed of multimeric protein complexes, i.e. the photosystems I and II, the cytochrome b/f complex and the ATP synthase, whose component subunits are encoded by the nuclear and plastid genomes. We wish to know how thylakoid membranes are built-up during plastid ontogeny and which auxiliary and regulatory factors are required. The small crucifer Arabidopsis thaliana serves as our experimental system.
(3) Molecular analysis of complex agronomically important crop traits
Most agronomically important crop traits are polygenic. We cooperate with commercial breeders in order to molecularly identify genes that enable the maize crop to be tolerant to chilling, water deficit, and nitrate limitation. We wish to clone the underlying genes/QTL by their genome position.
We are experts in the molecular biology of C3 and C4 photosynthesis, and in the molecular identification and characterisation of agronomic QTL. The enhancement of plant biomass production by the optimisation of photosynthesis is therefore the first focus of our research activities within the BioSC. We collaborate successfully and continually with commercial maize and sugar beet breeders and have accumulated a profound expertise in the marker-assisted mapping and characterisation/identification of agronomically important QTL. We wish to contribute our knowledge and experience into projects that require the combination of molecular biological and plant breeding expertise.
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