Our main goal is to understand how plants sense and respond to nutrients. And in particular, how nutrient signals interact with other signaling pathways to coordinate global gene expression in plants.
- We are currently taking a systems biology approach (Gutiérrez, 2012, Gutiérrez et al., 2005) to understand how nitrogen-induced responses are coordinated with other processes in the plant to coordinate growth and development in a changing environment.
- Our research has both basic and applied significance. Understanding how plants respond to nutrient and how this regulation is integrated with other processes is essential to devise strategies for the improvement of agronomical traits.
Systems Biology to understand nutrient regulation in Arabidopsis
Our goal is to understand how nitrogen signaling intersects with other signaling networks to control plant growth and development. This is essential to improving nitrogen use efficiency in plants or the amino acid content of seeds, important issues for health, agriculture and human nutrition. Recently we developed the first network models of the plant cell and identified the gene network modules that are controlled by nitrogen. Ours and previous work support a regulatory connection between hormone signaling pathways and nitrogen in Arabidopsis thaliana. However the precise role and the molecular nature of the nitrogen:hormone interactions are not understood. To address these questions, we will use an innovative approach that iterates through: (1) bioinformatics tools for gene network modeling, mapping of information flow in gene networks and strategic selection of key regulatory genes, (2) development of a platform for large scale functional studies of the selected genes, and (3) genomic analysis for detailed molecular characterization of the mutant phenotypes. The combination of integrative informatics, molecular genetics and genomics experimental approaches should be more effective at unraveling complex cross-talk mechanisms than previous, single approach, studies.