How plants produce their biomass. This project aims to investigate mechanisms that underpin the formation of secondary walls, the bulk of biomass in plant cells. Plant cell walls are essential for plant growth and provide great raw materials for many industrial products. Understanding how cell walls are made would enable tailored plant biomass production, but understanding remains poor. The project will induce secondary walls at will and outline a framework for how secondary walls are made. The ....How plants produce their biomass. This project aims to investigate mechanisms that underpin the formation of secondary walls, the bulk of biomass in plant cells. Plant cell walls are essential for plant growth and provide great raw materials for many industrial products. Understanding how cell walls are made would enable tailored plant biomass production, but understanding remains poor. The project will induce secondary walls at will and outline a framework for how secondary walls are made. The outcomes are expected to be relevant for the fuel, feed, food and construction sectors, and thus to Australia's future.Read moreRead less
Untangling the plant Golgi apparatus: Functional proteomics to understand plant cell wall biosynthesis. The plant cell wall determines plant morphology and structure. It is also a major factor in food quality, and it is used as forage and is the raw material for a range of industries. A significant proportion of the cell wall is synthesised in a poorly studied cellular compartment known as the Golgi apparatus. This project intends to exploit unique isolation and analytical techniques in conjunct ....Untangling the plant Golgi apparatus: Functional proteomics to understand plant cell wall biosynthesis. The plant cell wall determines plant morphology and structure. It is also a major factor in food quality, and it is used as forage and is the raw material for a range of industries. A significant proportion of the cell wall is synthesised in a poorly studied cellular compartment known as the Golgi apparatus. This project intends to exploit unique isolation and analytical techniques in conjunction to further profile and characterise this structure in order to uncover new information about the complex interplay of components involved in plant cell wall biosynthesis. This information will be used to support approaches to manipulate cell walls to produce plant biomass optimised for agricultural and industrial applications.Read moreRead less
Strigolactone, a new plant hormone: its regulation, role and potential for plant improvement. This Project will investigate a new plant hormone, one of only 10 or so discovered to date in plants. This hormone regulates shoot number, water and nutrient uptake and the ability of shoots to generate roots and develop wood. The Project will produce genetic tools and describe new processes for applications in sustainable plant improvement.
Identifying novel salinity tolerance mechanisms by spatial and temporal analysis of lipids in barley. Agrifood production faces the dual challenges of an increasing world population and the threats of abiotic stresses arising from climate change and the erosion of arable land. Cereals, the major food crops, are poorly adapted to tolerate most abiotic stresses, including salinity. This project applies new technologies investigating spatial and temporal biochemical mechanisms a model cereal, Horde ....Identifying novel salinity tolerance mechanisms by spatial and temporal analysis of lipids in barley. Agrifood production faces the dual challenges of an increasing world population and the threats of abiotic stresses arising from climate change and the erosion of arable land. Cereals, the major food crops, are poorly adapted to tolerate most abiotic stresses, including salinity. This project applies new technologies investigating spatial and temporal biochemical mechanisms a model cereal, Hordeum vulgare (barley), utilises to adapt and tolerate salinity. The aims are to investigate the role of specifically plasma membrane lipids modulating either signalling pathways or membrane fluidity that impacts on adaptation during salinity. The results will provide new leads for the development of cereal germplasm with increased salt tolerance.Read moreRead less
Deciphering the Thermal Acclimation of Mitochondrial Respiration. Plants acclimate to the extremes of temperature following a pre-exposure to a sub-lethal increase/decrease in temperature. Recent research has revealed that proteins of oxidative phosphorylation and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle are dynamic and change their abundance in response to temperature change. Harnessing a cutting edge protein mass spectrometry approach, this project seeks to better understand how mitochondrial respir ....Deciphering the Thermal Acclimation of Mitochondrial Respiration. Plants acclimate to the extremes of temperature following a pre-exposure to a sub-lethal increase/decrease in temperature. Recent research has revealed that proteins of oxidative phosphorylation and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle are dynamic and change their abundance in response to temperature change. Harnessing a cutting edge protein mass spectrometry approach, this project seeks to better understand how mitochondrial respiration and hence adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production is maintained during temperature change. Uniquely this project will examine this in both the model plant Arabidopsis and wheat and combine both tissue, environment-induced and genotype variation to reveal a new understanding of the thermal acclimation of this major mitochondrial process.Read moreRead less
Genetic evolution of plant proteins with biomedical applications. This project will draw upon a unique combination of skills in plant genetics and biomedical research to demonstrate that plants are not just a source of novel drugs. The results will show that they also provide a powerful biotechnological platform for the discovery, understanding, design and production of new pharmaceuticals.
Defining pathways that establish and maintain reproductive cell identity in plant ovules and seeds. Unlike animals, individual somatic cells in plants have the remarkable ability to regenerate into new plants, depending on the signals they perceive. This developmental plasticity is particularly important during normal plant growth, when mature cells adopt new identities within multicellular environments. Tissue complexity is critical for the utilisation of plants in society as food, fuel and fib ....Defining pathways that establish and maintain reproductive cell identity in plant ovules and seeds. Unlike animals, individual somatic cells in plants have the remarkable ability to regenerate into new plants, depending on the signals they perceive. This developmental plasticity is particularly important during normal plant growth, when mature cells adopt new identities within multicellular environments. Tissue complexity is critical for the utilisation of plants in society as food, fuel and fibre, but how and why plant cells adopt or change identity has been difficult to determine. This project aims to employ next-generation molecular methods to identify pathways driving differentiation of specific ovule and seed cell-types, which directly impact crop quality, yield and end-use.Read moreRead less
Carbon flux and its regulation in metabolic networks. Allocation of photo-assimilates throughout metabolic networks are central to a plants ability to cope with changes in its environment. This project will combine the use of quantitative molecular, chemical and imaging techniques to characterise the flux of resources and its regulation through metabolic networks of Australian native and crop plants.
The role of auxin in root organ specification - from symbiont to parasite. Sustainable agriculture in a changing climate depends on strategies to maximise crop performance and to minimise crop losses due to parasites. This project aims to identify genes and molecular mechanisms that symbiotic and parasitic microbes, which affect major crop plants, use to alter plant growth in a beneficial or detrimental way.
Targeting chloroplasts to enhance crop salt tolerance. Yield losses in crop plants due to increasingly saline soils are linked to the effects of salt on chloroplasts. By comparing chloroplast water- and salt-transport mechanisms of closely related salt-loving and salt-sensitive plants, this Fellowships aims to discover how chloroplasts maintain function in saline conditions. Novel biophysics and molecular techniques will be used to characterise transporters in model plants, and proof-of-concept ....Targeting chloroplasts to enhance crop salt tolerance. Yield losses in crop plants due to increasingly saline soils are linked to the effects of salt on chloroplasts. By comparing chloroplast water- and salt-transport mechanisms of closely related salt-loving and salt-sensitive plants, this Fellowships aims to discover how chloroplasts maintain function in saline conditions. Novel biophysics and molecular techniques will be used to characterise transporters in model plants, and proof-of-concept complementation experiments aim to confer salt tolerance on sensitive plants. These fundamental insights are likely to lead to rapid, step-change improvements in salt tolerance, especially in agriculturally relevant crops, to benefit Australia’s agri-industry and ensure food security in the future.Read moreRead less