MOLECULAR AND CELL BIOLOGY OF PLANTS

Ca2+-mediated signal transduction in response to biotic and abiotic stresses in plants: Ca2+, an intracellular second messenger; methods of measuring intracellular Ca2+ concentration; calcium transients and calcium signatures (4h).
Plant hormones (auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene, abscissic acid): biosynthesis, actions, transport and developmental effects; signal transduction pathways (16h).
Growth and development: Shoot and root apical meristems: their establishment and maintenance. Determination of the developmental axes and the involved genes. Molecular aspects of lateral organ formation (6h).
Blue light and red light responses: light perception, signal transduction and plant responses to light environmental conditions (6h).
Plant reproductive development: floral meristem development, floral organ identity genes, ABCDE model to explain the flower development; the control of flowering (8h).
Molecular aspects in micro and macro-gametogenesis; self-incompatibility during the pollen-pistil interactions; genes involved in control of double fertilization; embryo, seed and fruit development (14h).
Plant–microorganism interactions: cellular and molecular surveys about mycorrhiza, Rhizobium-Leguminosae symbiosis and plant-Agrobacterium interaction (10h).

16h (1 CFU) of practical work are planned on the following topics:
1) Somatic embryogenesis in the model system Daucus carota, tobacco micropropagation
2) Isolation of protoplasts from plant cell suspension cultures; fluorescence imaging of intracellular compartments
3) Protein extraction and quantification from Arabidopsis thaliana cell cultures stably expressing the calcium-sensitive photoprotein aequorin
4) Analysis of protein expression by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting