Collaborative Research Center 1101 at the University of Tübingen
(CRC- SonderForschungsBereich SFB)
In recent years, proteins that are key players in the plant’s physiology, development and adaptation to environmental cues were identified. The next step is to determine the molecular function of these key players, e.g. how they influence specific processes through their activity in the nucleus, the cytoplasm, at the cell membrane and cell-cell communication.
The central question posed by CRC 1101 “Molecular Encoding of Specificity in Plant Processes“ is, how the specificity of biological processes at molecular level is achieved. Encoding can happen at different levels, ranging from structural changes in individual molecules, through the specific assembly of nanoclusters, the intracellular sorting to the systemic distribution of specificity-mediating factors.
The realization of this approach is guaranteed by the Center for Plant Molecular Biology, University of Tübingen, the MPI for Developmental Biology Tübingen, the Centre for Organismal Studies, Heidelberg University, and the Department of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Hohenheim.
The CRC 1101`s research is divided into four linked project areas: (A) “Specificity of subcellular sorting and membrane organization“, (B) “Specificity by developmental regulators“, (C) “RNA-mediated specificity“, (D) “Receptor-mediated specificity“, in which the encoding of specificity in processes that control plant development or enable adaptation to abiotic and biotic environmental factors is investigated.
The CRC 1101 places particular emphasis on the following issues:
- What are the mechanistic principles of the molecules that are responsible for developmental and adaptation processes and that mediate the co-ordination of development and adaptation?
- How is the interaction of these molecules regulated and which roles do their intra- and subcellular localization, organization and dynamics play in the process?
- How do selected molecules function during the encoding of specificity at nanometric and atomic levels?
To address these issues, advanced spectroscopic, light and electron microscopic procedures will be continued to be developed. In combination with other quantitative methods, these technologies will facilitate the recording of quantitative data for the computational modelling and simulation of specificity encoding mechanisms.
We intend, in the medium and long term, to be in a position to make precise predictions about the dynamic functioning of specificity-mediating processes in plant development and adaptation. In the long term this should open the possibility of creating novel functional cell properties in plants by means of a synthetic biological approach.
On the basis of the established international graduate program “Cellular and Molecular Plant Biology” (GP-ZMBP), the CRC 1101 provides multi-disciplinary instruction, bringing together doctoral students from disciplines ranging from nano-biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology to cell biology, physiology and computational modelling.
