The domestication of crops was a landmark in the development of human civilisation. Today, most of our food and many of our resources are derived from plants. One of the most fundamental compounds is starch. Starch is the predominant storage carbohydrate in plants and the major constituent of our staple crops (e.g. rice, maize, wheat, potato etc). Despite its importance, our understanding of how plants make and degrade this essential resource is far from complete. Our research team focuses on the metabolic pathways leading to and from starch, and the way in which they are regulated.
We use the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana as our experimental system. This allows us to exploit the complete genome sequence and the array of post-genomic facilities to make rapid progress. Our current understanding suggests that different plants make starch is essentially the same way, as the components of the pathway appears to be highly conserved, even in distantly related species. Consequently, the knowledge gained through studying Arabidopsis will be transferable to starch-producing crops and enable their future improvement. This is an essential goal as the world population approaches its predicted peak of over 9 billion.
► ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2791-0915
The PRK/Rubisco shunt strongly influences Arabidopsis seed metabolism and oil accumulation, affecting more than carbon recycling
Deslandes-Herold, G; Zanella, M; (...); Zeeman, SC
Plant Cell, 10.1093/plcell/koac338 2023
Plant growth: An active or passive role for starch reserves?
Zeeman, SC and Solhaug, EM
Current Biology, 32 (16) , pp.R894-R896, 10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.024 2022
Effective root responses to salinity stress include maintained cell expansion and carbon allocation
Hongfei Li; Kilian Duijts; Carlo Pasini; Joyce E. van Santen; Jasper Lamers; Thijs de Zeeuw; Francel Verstappen; Nan Wang; Samuel C. Zeeman; Diana Santelia et al.
New Phytologist, 2023-03-29, DOI: 10.1111/nph.18873
Prof. Dr. Samuel C. Zeeman
ETH Zurich
Institute of Molecular Plant Biology
8092 Zurich
Tel: +41 (0)44 632 82 75