Stéphanie Robert (left; photo: Erik Abel) and Stephan Wenkel (right: photo Mattias Pettersson) are part of the two research consortia STARMORPH and RESYDE that are awarded an ERC Synergy Grant.
Two research consortia, including UPSC researchers Stéphanie Robert from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Stephan Wenkel from Umeå University, have been awarded prestigious ERC Synergy Grants. They aim to investigate fundamental aspects of plant development from diverse angles, paving the way for advancements in biotechnology and plant engineering.
The highly competitive ERC Synergy grants are designed to support collaborative research efforts that address complex, ambitious scientific challenges beyond the scope of individual researchers. Stéphanie Robert and Stephan Wenkel are part of the STARMORPH and RESYDE projects, which have each received €10 million in funding over six years.
STARMORPH - Creating a spatio-temporal map for auxin dynamics
The STARMORPH project, led by Stéphanie Robert from SLU, will focus on auxin - a plant hormone crucial to various aspects of plant development. For example, auxin plays a key role in promoting root and stem growth and is essential for organ formation.
Over the next six years, Stéphanie Robert will collaborate with Ondřej Novák from the Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic), Jürgen Kleine-Vehn from the University of Freiburg (Germany), and Alexander Jones from the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK). Together, they aim to address the fundamental question of how auxin contributes to so many aspects of plant development.
STARMORPH introduces the innovative concept of an “auxin signature” which reflects auxin levels not only in organs, tissues, or cells but also within specific cellular compartments integrating cellular responses to developmental and external signals.
“The subcellular compartmentalization of auxin is still poorly understood,” explains Stéphanie Robert. “We believe that auxin’s specific effects are not solely determined by its overall concentration but rather by its unique subcellular distribution and how it is perceived at the different sites within the cell, creating an ‘auxin perception signature.’”
By combining their expertise in a multidisciplinary synergy, the project partners aim to map auxin dynamics with high temporal and spatial resolution. They will apply a wide range of different methods including advanced microscopy techniques, highly sensitive quantification methods of auxin and the usage of biosensors.
Their focus will be on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, specifically its apical hook - a structure essential for seedling survival during soil emergence. While growing in the soil, the seedling bends forming a hook to protect the delicate apex from mechanical damage. Once reaching the light, the hook is abolished, and the plant opens its leaves toward the sun.
“The hook is an excellent model for studying growth transition and plant development in general,” explains Stéphanie Robert. “Our findings could lead to a paradigm shift in understanding how auxin influences plant growth and organ formation at the cellular and subcellular levels, potentially driving advancements in plant engineering and biotechnology.”
RESYDE – Building a virtual flower
RESYDE, the project in which Stephan Wenkel is involved in, will tackle the question how multicellular organisms generate their intricate forms. The focus of the RESYDE project is on symmetry breaking during flower development – a process by which two initially identical cells adopt different cell fates – leading to diverse forms and functions. This fundamental phenomenon is crucial in all multicellular organisms and starts with an asymmetric cell division.
The research consortium comprises beside Stephan Wenkel, Kerstin Kaufmann from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany), the coordinator of the project, Marcus Heisler from the University of Sydney (Australia) and Henrik Jönsson from Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK).
Together they have an ambitious goal: they want to build a virtual flower meristem, the stem cell containing structure from which flowers originate. It will be based on data from the model plant Arabidopsis and integrate a detailed set of parameters that define how the final flower will look like.
“Flower structures are very complex and can look very different between species. We want to understand at the single cell level how such a variety of structures develops and then use this information to model and re-engineer different floral structures”, explained Stephan Wenkel.
The four project partners bring multidisciplinary expertise to the project. They plan to exploit genetic, molecular, experimental, live imaging, computational and synthetic biology techniques to better understand how floral symmetry breaking processes that occur at the single cell level have been changed during evolution to create the wealth of floral architectures.
“Our part will be to identify microProteins and other novel protein isoforms that play critical roles in flower development. Such small proteins can regulate large protein complexes and thereby affect symmetry breaking processes during flower development”, said Stephan Wenkel.
The research consortium plans among other things to apply engineered microProteins to alter floral symmetry breaking processes and change flower architecture. One of their goals is to engineer the tomato flower structure into Arabidopsis plants and vice versa.
“Flowers are not only beautiful. They must be fertilised and develop into fruits and grains. Understanding the specifics of the flower function and structure are critical for future plant breeding and agriculture”, added Stephan Wenkel.
About ERC Synergy Grants
ERC Synergy Grants are prestigious awards given by the European Research Council (ERC) to small teams of two to four Principal Investigators. The ambition is to foster collaborative research efforts aimed at addressing complex and ambitious scientific challenges that cannot be tackled by individual researchers alone. Emphasis is put on interdisciplinary collaborations that enable pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge through innovative and synergistic approaches.
56 grants were awarded in 2024, and the research groups will share €570 million in total. The ERC Synergy Grant scheme is part of the research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, of the European Union.
Link to the press release from the European Research Council
Short facts about the two projects:
STARMORPH - Unravelling Spatio-temporal Auxin intracellular Redistribution for Morphogenesis
The project partners:
- Stéphanie Robert (coordinator), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden
- Ondřej Novák (co-applicant), Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic
- Jürgen Kleine-Vehn (co-applicant), University of Freiburg, Germany
- Alexander Jones (co-applicant), Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
RESYDE - Re-engineering symmetry breaking in development and evolution
The project partners:
- Kerstin Kaufmann (coordinator), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
- Marcus Heisler (co-applicant), University of Sydney, Australia
- Henrik Jönsson (co-applicant), Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
- Stephan Wenkel (co-applicant), Umeå University, Sweden
For questions, please contact:
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
Stephan Wenkel
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/stephan_wenkel