Plant Sessions
Regulation of resource allocation and growth
Dates: 1st and 2nd July
Organized by: Astrid Wingler (University College London) and Matthew Paul (Rothamsted Research)
Contact: a.wingler@ucl.ac.uk
Confirmed Speakers: Gerrit Beemster (Antwerp), David Jackson (Cold Spring Harbor), Hendrik Poorter (Forschungszentrum Jülich), Paul Struik (Wageningen), Andy Fleming (University of Sheffield), Joost Keurentjes (Wageningen University), Céline Masclaux-Daubresse (INRA Versailles), Henriette Schluepmann (Utrecht University), Ronan Sulpice (MPI Golm), Cristobal Uauy (John Innes Centre), Carol Wagstaff (University of Reading), Achim Walter (ETH Zürich)
Description:
While the function and regulation of individual genes has been studied in detail over the last decade, how genes interact with each other and with the environment to determine plant resource allocation and growth is still a largely open question. Recent developments, including e.g. association mapping, meta-analyses and modelling approaches, allow us to analyse the processes that determine plant growth from a new angle. The session aims to cover research on all aspects of the regulation of plant resource allocation and growth, from the cell to crop yield. Topics that will be addressed include questions such as how the cell cycle is regulated in response to the environment, how growth and yield are determined by metabolism and to what extent the regulation of photosynthesis influences plant growth and yield. To cover these wide-ranging aspects we are planning to discuss the regulation of plant growth under the following session titles: "Cell cycle regulation and diurnal rhythms of growth", "Regulation of carbon and nitrogen allocation", "Systems biology of growth processes" and "Photosynthesis and crop modelling"
Pathways and fluxes: analysis of the plant metabolic network
Dates: 3rd and 4th July
Organized by: R. George Ratcliffe (University of Oxford) and Nicholas J Kruger (University of Oxford)
Contact: george.ratcliffe@plants.ox.ac.uk
Confirmed Speakers:
Andrew Hanson (University of Florida), Ron Milo (Weizmann Institute of Science), John Morgan (Purdue University), Yair Shachar-Hill (Michigan State University), Stephanie Arrivault (MPI Golm), Jörg Schwender (Brookhaven National Laboratory), Ralf Steuer (Humboldt University Berlin), Lee Sweetlove (University of Oxford), Guillaume Tcherkez (Université de Paris-Sud), Hans Schnyder (Technische Universität München), Igor Libourel (University of Minnesota), Johann Rohwer (Stellenbosch University)
Description:
The fluxes that flow through the plant metabolic network sustain life and they are intimately linked to the agronomically important parameters of yield and composition. Flux is the only direct measure of metabolic activity, and measurements of flux allow the definition of metabolic phenotypes that are closely related to biological function. Understanding the behaviour and regulation of plant metabolic networks comes down to understanding these phenotypes and the flux distributions that they reflect. To this end labeling experiments and metabolic modeling are the tools of the trade, and the last few years have seen substantial developments in such areas as the measurement of multiple fluxes in large metabolic networks, the analysis of labeling time-courses, the construction of genome-scale stoichiometric constraints-based models and the formulation of kinetic models. The aim of the session is to review these efforts in the context of a network description of metabolism, and to examine the practical implications of the predictive understanding that is emerging from these studies. To this end we envisage grouping the contributions to the session into four themes: Steady-state metabolic flux analysis; Analysis of labeling time-courses; Modeling and bioinformatics of metabolic networks; Strategies for network design and manipulation.
Plant Transcription: regulation and mechanism
Dates: 1st July, 2nd July (am only)
Organized by: Heather Knight (Durham University) and Piers Hemsley (Durham University)
Contact: p.h.knight@durham.ac.uk
Confirmed Speakers: Professor Stefan Björklund (Umeå University), Ueli Grossniklaus (Institute of Plant Biology, Switzerland ), Richard Meagher (Genetics Department, University of Georgia), John Brown (Plant Sciences Division, University of Dundee), Martin Huelskamp (Botanical Institute, University of Cologne), Nick Monk (School of Mathematical Sciences, Nottingham), Ari Sadanandom (Warwick HRI, University of Warwick), Jerzy Paszkowski (Department of Plant Biology, University of Geneva),
Description:
Plants modulate the expression of thousands of genes in response to their external environment and to internal developmental cues. Over the past decade, post-genomic approaches to transcript profiling have demonstrated the scale and diversity of the changes in gene expression that occur in plants. The mechanisms by which such changes are achieved are the focus of current research. Study of transcriptional regulation in plants has been defined primarily by identification of promoter elements and the trans-acting factors that bind to them. However, recent advances in our knowledge of epigenetics, differential transcript splicing, gene silencing and the regulation of transcriptional complexes and their accessory proteins have revealed an increasing number of levels of control. This session aims to address transcriptional regulation in plants as a whole, bringing together those investigating transcription from the global scale down to the level of transcriptional complex formation, using modelling, genetic and classical biochemical approaches.
Integration of abiotic and biotic stress responses: from systems biology to field
Dates: 2nd July (pm only), 3rd and 4th July
Organized by: Katherine Denby (University of Warwick) , Christine Foyer (University of Leeds), Miriam Gifford (University of Warwick), Robert Hancock (SCRI)
Contact: k.j.denby@warwick.ac.uk
Confirmed Speakers:
Prof. Murray Grant (University of Exeter), Prof. Stanislaw Karpinski (Warsaw University of Life Sciences), Jim Beynon (University of Warwick), Jose Gutierrez-Marcos (University of Warwick), Alex Webb (University of Cambridge), Marc Knight (Durham University), Xinyou Yin (Wageningen University), Teun Munnik (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences), Sandy Vanderauwera (University of Ghent), Dr. Gustavo Bonaventure (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena), Rebecca Nelson (Cornell University), Michael Metzlaff (Bayer BioScience N.V), Angelika Mustroph (Bayreuth University), Prof. Phil Mullineaux (University of Essex)
Description:
In their natural environments, plants must perceive and integrate signals from a constantly changing environment and respond appropriately. Often they will have to respond to both biotic and abiotic stress simultaneously. Climate change means future crops with be grown in increasingly unfavourable environments, with problems of water limitation, salinisation, low nutrient availability and changing geographical distributions of plant pathogens. Crops which maintain yield during environmental stress would make a significant contribution to low input, sustainable production to ensure food security.
This session is designed to highlight new discoveries about mechanisms of stress perception and signal integration between abiotic and biotic stress responses. The aim is to bring together knowledge of plant environmental perception, cell signalling, gene regulation, physiology and crop science, with the latest developments in systems biology and modelling. These approaches enable us to integrate multiple types of data to predict plant responses to combinations of abiotic and biotic stress.