Research

To face environmental stresses, plants rely on cellular adaptation mechanisms to adjust their cellular homeostasis and onset a stress response. This adaptation requires a large proteome remodelling relying on proteolytic pathways to ensure removal of unwanted proteins. Among the environmental perturbations plants face, salinity stress is one of the major threats. Due to its nature, increase in soil salt content leads to strong plant growth inhibition through ionic imbalance, osmotic stress, oxidative stress and reduced nutrient uptake. However, the mechanisms underlying proteome remodelling to mitigate salt stress are poorly understood. This project aims to investigate the importance of plant selective autophagy in response to salt-stress. It will provide significant advances in our understanding of plant response to stress, in an era where agricultural challenges are increasing.

The soybean is a key source of protein for animal feed due to its high protein content. In Austria and across Europe, the cultivation area is increasing, but it still falls significantly short of demand. One obstacle to direct use is trypsin inhibitors (TI), antinutritional proteins that severely impair digestibility—especially in pigs and poultry. Currently, energy- and cost-intensive processes such as toasting or extrusion are required, which also reduce protein quality. Natural variation for breeding-based reduction of TI activity (TIA) is largely lacking. Knocking out individual genes leads to “proteome rebalancing” and the loss of sulfur-containing amino acids, which are essential for feed quality—meaning classical breeding strategies reach their limits here. The project purses two approaches: (1) precise genome editing using CRISPR/Cas to modify Kunitz and Bowman–Birk genes so that the proteins lose their inhibitory effect while retaining sulfur-containing amino acids; and (2) conventional breeding that utilizes genetic diversity to further reduce TIA. The developed lines will be functionally validated and compared with control plants in terms of TIA, protein content, and protein quality. An accompanying socio-economic analysis evaluates the potential and challenges of biotechnological approaches in plant breeding. The project is carried out by a new consortium consisting of BOKU Vienna and Saatzucht Gleisdorf. The close integration of university research and applied breeding ensures that the results can be transferred into practice. The expected outcomes include novel soybean lines with reduced TIA as starting material for variety breeding, as well as fundamental insights into the regulation of TI proteins. This will enable direct, energy-efficient on-farm use, open up new value creation opportunities for agriculture and the feed industry, and sustainably strengthen regional protein production.

How plants master their cell logistics: New insights into transport pathways in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana Every living cell relies on a precisely coordinated transport system to maintain its diverse functions. This intracellular transport system ensures that the right proteins arrive at the right place at the right time and determines which molecules go where and when damaged or no longer needed components are broken down. In plant cells, this logistics system is particularly versatile. It not only influences fundamental processes such as cell growth and cell division, but also enables rapid adaptation to changing environmental conditions such as drought stress, cold, or pest infestation. Despite their fundamental importance, many details of these cellular transport pathways are still not fully understood. This research project focuses on so-called TOL proteins (TARGET OF MYB1-LIKE), which perform important tasks in the organization of cellular transport pathways in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Until now, it was assumed that these proteins were mainly involved in sorting membrane proteins destined for degradation towards the vacuole. However, recent findings show that certain TOL proteins, in particular TOL3, TOL6, and TOL9, are significantly more versatile. Plants lacking these three proteins not only show disturbances in transport to the lytic vacuole, but also defects in transport to storage organelles, in secretion, and in the degradation of damaged cell components by autophagy. The aim of this project is to investigate the individual functions of these TOL proteins in detail and to clarify their role in the various transport pathways. Particular attention is being paid to TOL3, whose cellular distribution, interaction partners, and functional domains are being investigated. State-of-the-art methods from genetics, biochemistry, and novel imaging techniques are being used for this purpose. Microscopic techniques enable the precise localization of the proteins and the analysis of their interactions with known transport complexes. Genetic crosses and pharmacological treatments help to better understand the respective contributions of TOL proteins to specific transport pathways. This project sheds light on fundamental mechanisms of cellular logistics in plants, which have been little researched to date. In the long term, the findings can be used to specifically influence the cellular transport network, with possible applications in plant breeding, for example to improve stress tolerance and yield.