Biotechnología Celulár

What is it about?

 

Any single plant cell can generate an organism. We cannot. In our group Cellular Biotechnology we investigate, how plants organise themselves in space and time, and we develop applications from our results.

 

  • Remodelling of the cytoskeleton allows plants to change shape, but also to sense their environment.
  • Chloroplasts can contact through mysterious fingers (stromules) other organelles in the cell
  • Plants conquered land, but sometimes they return and for this have to transform their leaves.
  • Form is one of the four Aristotelian causes - plant cells use this principle for self organisation.

Microtubules

Microtubules define cell shape. They also can sense environmental stimuli - for instance cold.

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Stromules

These mysterious chloroplast fingers form under stress and touch other organelles.

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Heterophylly

Hygrophila difformis changes its leaf shape depending on the environment and offers a model to study the coupling of signals to morphogenesis.

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causa formalis

Form is one of the four Aristotelian causes. Can plant cells steer molecular events by changing their shape?

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