Individual Research Project 2. DELLA-dependent chromatin features during seedling adaptation to drought under the supervision of Drs David Alabadí and Javier Gallego-Bartolomé at the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (IBMCP), Valencia, Spain.
It is a project about the transcriptional mechanisms by which DELLA proteins contribute to plant adaptation to drought. DELLAs are transcriptional regulators that are degraded in response to the hormone gibberellin (GA) and regulate different actors during transcription by physical interaction, e.g. transcription factors or transcription elongation factors. DELLAs have proven to be useful in agriculture, since the varieties responsible for the Green Revolution that took place in the 60s and 70s of the last century carried alleles with enhanced DELLA activity. These alleles help the plant to cope with harsh environments, e.g. drought, however, the underlying molecular mechanisms are mostly unknown.
The objectives of the Project are to identify the physiological, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and interactomic traits triggered by drought that are dependent on DELLAs. Arabidopsis and oilseed rape plants will be used, except for the identification of the drought-dependent DELLA interactome, which will be determined in Arabidopsis. To modulate DELLA levels in both species, treatments with GAs and with the GA biosynthesis inhibitor paclobutrazol, and also GA/DELLA mutants in Arabidopsis will be used.
Active collaboration with academic partners at CBGP-CSIC (Madrid), University of Amsterdam, University of Regensburg and ENS (Paris) to get not only specific training in molecular approaches but also intellectual input that will be valuable to the progress of the project.
IBMCP-Host Insititution
The Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP) established in 1992, is a joint research center of the CSIC, the largest research institution in Spain, and the UPV. It is located in the Campus of the UPV in Valencia, very close to sea shore. Its main activity is to carry out cutting-edge and quality scientific research about key processes driving plant growth and development and their ability to adapt to the environment. More than 200 students of many different nationalities have obtained the doctorate degree in our institute. It currently houses 29 research groups, with 41 senior researchers, 10 career track fellows, 50 postdocs and 66 predocs.
Any questions?
Do you have any questions, or do you require additional information? Please contact: Drs David Alabadí; dalabadi@ibmcp.upv.es; and Javier Gallego-Bartolomé; jagalbar@ibmcp.upv.es.