The five UPSC researchers who received a grant from the Swedish Research Council: Laura Bacete Cano (top left; photo: Mattias Pettersson), Johannes Messinger (middle top; photo: Felizitas Messinger), Ove Nilsson (top right; photo: Fredrik Larsson), Stéphanie Robert (bottom left; photo: Erik Abel) and Stephan Wenkel (bottom right; photo: Stephan Wenkel).
This year’s call from the Swedish Research Council for projects in natural and engineering sciences went very well for UPSC. Five researchers received funding. Laura Bacete Cano was awarded a starting grant, while Johannes Messinger, Ove Nilsson, Stéphanie Robert and Stephan Wenkel received a research project grant. This high number of granted projects was only reached in 2020 before.
The five researchers will receive together a total of about 22 million Swedish krona over a four-year period. They will use this funding to work on very different biological questions covering structural biology and biophysics, cell and developmental biology, plant physiology and adaptation.
Laura Bacete Cano wants to investigate how the plant cell wall maintains its functionality under stress. Cell walls provide stability to the plant and serve as first barrier against external attacks. What makes it difficult to study them is that they are not static, permanent structures but rather react dynamically to stress and can trigger plant immune responses. By using advanced microscopy techniques, Laura Bacete Cano wants to advance technologies to study the dynamic nature of the cell wall and investigate the nature and functioning of the cell wall signals.
Johannes Messinger and his team have recently published the, to date, highest-resolution structure of photosystem II, one of the two light-conversion units of photosynthesis. The photosystem II protein complex harbors metal ions that form the water-splitting cofactor and uses the released electrons during photosynthesis. In the new project, Johannes Messinger will employ photosystem II as a model system to understand how protein-water-cofactor interactions, protein dynamics and charge fields allow the activation of abundant metals for performing complex chemistry.
Ove Nilsson’s project will focus on the regulation of phenology in trees concentrating on aspen, poplar and birch. He and his group have identified genes in aspen and poplar that are similar to flowering-promoting genes of the model plant Arabidopsis but have diverse functions in trees. Now, he wants to study how these genes are involved in seasonal growth and growth adaptation at different latitudes. His long-term goal is to understand how climate change affects the regulation of these genes and thus the ability of trees to adjust to new climates.
The fundamental question that stands behind Stéphanie Robert’s research project is how cell shape contributes to multicellularity and the proper structure and function of tissues. She and her team will study the outermost cell layer of the leaf – the epidermal pavement cells - which often form very characteristic puzzle-like patterns. Her goal is to create a geometrical map of a leaf that integrates mechanical interactions between cells, cell layers and tissues to identify key molecular players that determine the shape of a cell, tissue and organ.
Stephan Wenkel investigates microProteins, small proteins that have been often ignored because of their size but that play important roles in regulating larger protein complexes. His new project will focus on a certain subgroup of microProteins that seem to be involved in DNA methylation, a process that affects the activity of genes. By using protein biochemistry, genetics and live imaging techniques, Stephan Wenkel will study how this special group of microProteins is involved in DNA methylation during development.
The five UPSC projects awarded by the Swedish Research Council:
• Project: Watchers on the Wall: Decoding the Early Stages of Plant Cell Wall Integrity
Laura Bacete Cano
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/laura_bacete
• Project: Protein-water-cofactor interactions in biological water oxidation - a paradigm for base metal activation
Johannes Messinger
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
Email:
https://www.umu.se/personal/johannes-messinger/
• Project: Molecular Regulation of FT-like Genes in Latitudinal Climate Adaptation in Trees
Ove Nilsson
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/ove_nilsson
• Project: Coordination of cell shape acquisition during plant morphogenesis
Stéphanie Robert
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/stephanie_robert
• Project: Decoding Tissue Patterning: The role of microProteins in epigenetic cell memory
Stephan Wenkel
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/stephan_wenkel