Researchers at the University of Freiburg receive ERC Synergy Grants
The European Research Council (ERC) is honouring two international and interdisciplinary teams, including researchers from Freiburg.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn | Chair of Molecular Plant Physiology at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg, as well as a member and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS)
Researchers from the University of Freiburg have been successful in two European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grants. The ERC uses Synergy Grants to support international and interdisciplinary teams that meet the criteria of scientific excellence and promise outstanding results.
Over a period of six years, the project ‘STARMORPH – Unravelling Spatio-temporal Auxin Intracellular Redistribution for Morphogenesis’ by Prof. Dr Jürgen Kleine-Vehn, a biologist at the University of Freiburg, will receive a total of 10 million euros, with the University of Freiburg receiving around 2.5 million euros. Kleine-Vehn is a member and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS), where he is researching auxin signalling and its influence on plant growth from the subcellular to the organ level.
The plant hormone auxin can trigger different effects
Auxin regulates the development of plant organs (morphogenesis). As plants grow, they develop roots and leaves as well as flowers and fruit. The plant hormone auxin can trigger or inhibit growth depending on its concentration and signalling strength. The diverse and complex processes with which auxin is associated seem to contradict its simple molecular structure. Unlike classical hormones, auxin has three receptors in different areas of the cell: in the nucleus, in the cytosol and in the extracellular space.
“The plant hormone auxin regulates an extremely large number of processes in plants, from embryonic development to the formation of flowers and fruits. Yet it is a simple molecule. Understanding how auxin encodes these complex processes gives us the key to plant development. We could use it to open the door to innovations in agriculture,” says Kleine-Vehn.
To gain a holistic understanding of plant morphogenesis, a team of researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, led by Stéphanie Robert, is working together across the fields of molecular cell biology, synthetic biology, organic chemistry, genetics and biophysics. They want to explore an auxin signalling concept that takes into account the auxin level in each compartment and determines an overall signal with quantitative and qualitative cell responses. If STARMORPH succeeds in understanding the formation of plant organs and the role of auxin in this process, the findings can be used in a variety of ways due to the central function of auxin. According to Kleine-Vehn: “Plants integrate environmental information into their architecture. Auxin also controls growth in response to environmental conditions. In agriculture, such a response to the environment is not necessarily desirable, since one plant looks like another in the field and should still produce a good yield in a stressful environment.”
Overview of facts
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn is Chair of Molecular Plant Physiology at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg, as well as a member and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS).
Original publications