Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ETAP (Tracing Evolution of Auxin Transport and Polarity in Plants)
Teaser
The overall objective of the project is to understand evolution of PIN-dependent auxin transport – a versatile, crucial mechanism mediating many developmental processes in higher plants.It will reveal how the major multicellular organisms on Earth – plants - regulate their...
Summary
The overall objective of the project is to understand evolution of PIN-dependent auxin transport – a versatile, crucial mechanism mediating many developmental processes in higher plants.
It will reveal how the major multicellular organisms on Earth – plants - regulate their development using their own specific mechanisms and signalling molecules.
Work performed
We managed to establish a simple multicellular alga Klebsormidium flaccidum as a useful model of early evolutionary studies in plant lineage. We used this model to probe into the origins of auxin transport mechanism and isolated and characterized the most primitive PIN auxin transporter to date (Nature Plants 2019, provisionally accepted). We also contributed to the genome sequencing of the morphologically more complex alga Chara braunii (Cell 2018) and identified corresponding PIN sequences.
We also managed to implement the knowledge on evolution of PIN proteins to gain a novel insight into how the PIN-dependent root gravitropism mechanism arose during the evolution (Nature communications 2019).
Final results
Our progressing studies will reveal how the plant hormone auxin became during evolution the major signal regulating growth and forms of plants as we know them today. It will provide an essential ground-work for further understanding of how the unique mechanism of plant development arose during the progress of the higher plant evolution.
Website & more info
More info: https://ist.ac.at/en/erc-advanced-grant-friml-etap/.