Structural Biology & Cell Biology & Genetics
Plants are nature’s other successful experiment with multicellular life. We are interested in signaling and metabolic pathways that allow plants to grow and to develop. Our approach combines structural biology and biochemistry with cell biology and genetics in Arabidopsis.
Currently, we study how plant cells communicate with each other at their cell membrane, where they have evolved unique membrane receptor kinases. These receptors sense steroid and peptide hormones to orchestrate growth and development, to establish and maintain stem cell populations and to form plant organs and tissues. We have shown that these receptors require helper proteins for activation. We now want to obtain a molecular understanding of plant peptide hormone signaling and identify novel receptor complexes.
A second line of research is to understand how plants sense and store phosphate, an essential plant nutrient. We became interested in this topic by identifying a protein complex, which uses cytosolic ATP to generate long chains of inorganic polyphosphate, an important phosphate store in yeast. We have initiated a set of projects to test whether plants also make use of polyphosphates to store phosphate.
Prof. Dr. Michael Hothorn
University of Geneva
Department of Plant Sciences
1211 Geneva
Tel: +41 (0)22 379 30 13