Events and seminars

Proteostasis can be defined as the dynamic regulation of the functional proteome and comprises biogenesis, trafficking, modification, and degradation of proteins. In humans, the importance of proteostasis is illustrated by diverse disease states associated with its dysregulation and in plants, modulation of the proteome influences all agronomic traits. Intriguingly, and perhaps counterintuitively, two of the most profound advances in modern crop genetic improvement have been found to involve the subversion of proteostatic mechanisms.

Our group seeks to understand plant proteostasis and ultimately to apply this knowledge to crop improvement.  I will talk about two aspects of our work which exemplify focused and more expansive approaches to understanding how the proteome is controlled. Firstly, I will discuss how the N-degron pathways modulate stress responses via targeted degradation of regulatory proteins, and then present recent results from a large-scale project that aims to uncover the genetic architecture of protein regulation in Arabidopsis.