Location
Jozef Schell seminar room
“Transporter function in photoassimilate partitioning and importance for plant performance”
Plant growth and development largely depend on the long-distance transport of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur assimilates from photosynthetically-active source leaves to sinks. Sucrose represents the main transport form of carbon, while amino acids are the dominant organic nitrogen and sulfur transport compounds in most plants. Leaf-to-seed allocation of photoassimilates occurs via the phloem and requires loading of the metabolites into the leaf phloem and, at the sink end, their import into the growing embryo. Our research concerns the identification and characterization of key transport processes regulating assimilate partitioning in Arabidopsis and legumes (i.e., pea and soybean) and understanding of their importance for source to sink physiology. Data will be presented demonstrating that cellular transport systems are fundamental in nitrogen, sulfur, and carbon movement from cell to whole plant level and that their function is essential in controlling metabolism and development of source and sink.
Invited by Prof Dirk Inzé and Prof Geert De Jaeger