Forschungsseminar Vortrag von Dr. Ana I. Caño-Delgado

Despite the massive amount of information gathered around the functions and mechanisms of Brassinosteroids (BRs) in plants, an important limitation persists in our knowledge of this signaling pathway: almost all we know comes from observations on the BRI1 receptor pathway, that is essential for growth and development, and for which mutants are highly pleiotropic and typically dwarf.

Since the discovery of BRI1-like receptors (BRL1/3) twenty years ago1, the fundamental functions of BRI1-like receptors (BRL1/3) remain elusive, largely viewed as redundant with limited vascular expression and minimal mutant phenotypes. However, our lab has taken a novel perspective to explore the function of BRLs in Arabidopsis, to understand the inner working of this pathway and we have now deciphered the BRL3 pathway in Arabidopsis, including novel cell-specific components in the pathway essential to plant adaptation to elevated temperatures and drought resistance2-3. Our data not only change the paradigm for our present understanding of BR signaling in plants4, but also open new and exciting avenues for engineering climate resilient crops5. Our latest results and our effort for transferring those findings into agricultural value will be presented at the seminar.