Plant biology

Our main research areas:

• The role of priming in induced resistance and its molecular background: Sophisticated defence mechanisms have evolved in plants through evolution enabling them to defend themselves against attacks by various pathogens. These activated defence mechanisms depends largely on the speed of detection and the intensity of the response. However, the effectiveness of basic resistance is further enhanced by various biotic and abiotic stimuli prior to infection. This phenomenon is called induced resistance. The non-protein amino acid, aminobutyric acid (BABA) induced resistance mechanism in the model plant Arabidopsis. Recent results show that this broad-spectrum protection is not dependent on the immediate activation after induction but rather a faster and stronger response to  basic defence mechanisms when attacked by the pathogen. This  increased response capacity, in comparison with human and animal analogy with similar phenomena in humans and animals, has been termed sensitisation or priming. In our laboratory, we are in the process of determining the molecular basis of priming forward and reverse genetic methods. 
• Application of gene silencing in plant biology research: In studying the structure and function of small RNAs in plants we have shown the similarities and differences in the splicing mechanisms of animals and plants differences. We characterized the structure of plant cellular small RNA promoters and function. Application of isolated cellular small RNA promoters in gene silencing constructs. The application of gene silencing techniques to plant resistance research.
• Research on resistance to grapevine Agrobacterium gall rot disease: Our aim is to identify a dominant and putative single-gene genetic and molecular plant biology basis of Agrobacterium resistance  molecular and molecular mechanisms. Individuals of a hybrid family will be characterised for their resistance to bacterial infection and resistance-associated DNA markers (RAPD, AFLP) identification. In parallel, based on "silencing" technology experiments will be carried out to characterise the expression of T-DNA oncogenes (iaaM, iaaH) transcription of short double-stranded RNA structures (shRNA). 

Available equipment: 

Plant molecular biology laboratory - the laboratory is equipped to perform plant DNA, RNA extraction, agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, conventional and real-time PCR, RAPD and other PCR-based analyses