Research

Belts decorated with metal fittings were prestigious objects belonging to an elite social class in the 8th century Avar Empire. Their high number on the western edge of the empire in what is now Lower Austria is astonishing. Until now, these objects have mainly been studied typologically. In our project, they will be analyzed in their entirety for the first time using a combination of archaeological, iconographic, technological, and chemical methods (element and lead isotope analysis). The starting point for the investigation is 100 fittings from burial grounds in Lower Austria. By recording measurements, surface characteristics, and material composition, a multidimensional catalog of characteristics will be created and statistically evaluated. This information will be combined with genetic and anthropological knowledge on the belt wearers, which was obtained in the framework of a previous project. This should clarify key questions about the organization and location of production, the transfer of raw materials in the 8th century, and the social role of their wearers. The results will not only be published in specialist circles, but also communicated to the public through the experimental reconstruction of a belt set. Through our in-depth investigations, we want to find out what lies behind the “power of belts” and what role Lower Austria played as a contact zone for the bronze casting industry.

Carbohydrates, also called glycans, are the most abundant biopolymers on Earth. They are essential to all known living organisms from bacteria to humans, but their importance is perhaps most striking in plants. Plants use glycans as their main building material, encasing their cells in a rigid and complex glycan wall that is central to their growth, resistance, and intercellular communication. However, the plant cell wall is also extraordinarily complex, and the molecular structure of its many glycan constituents remains poorly understood as conventional analytical methods struggle to deal with the immense complexity of these molecules. The aim of this project is to unravel the structure of plant cell wall glycans (e.g. hemicelluloses, pectins, and arabinogalactans) through the development of novel analytical methods based on ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS). Resolving isomeric structures and identifying novel structural motifs in plant polysaccharides are key challenges to overcome for a better understanding of cell wall structures. To this end, we will develop multidimensional LC-IM-MS workflows and establish a plant glycan database building on the unique library of synthetic plant oligosaccharide standards of the Pfrengle group. The plant glycomics methods developed herein will be applied to the study of Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with cell wall defects, revealing the role of specific genes in the formation of defined structural motifs in the plant cell wall. Through offering molecular-level insight into the main structural building blocks of the cell wall, our project will facilitate our understanding of cell wall formation and the structure-function relationships that govern its various roles in plants from development to immunity.

As an interdisciplinary, integrative project in the context of the circular economy, mass spectrometric characterization of degradation products obtained from various treatment methods of technical lignins and lignin modifications is planned. This complex analytical data will then be processed in databases using a bioinformatic approach together with a variety of other process- and substance-specific data and made available for process optimization. In addition to this collaborative research, the project also addresses an entirely new aspect in the field of metal-molecule interactions. The creation of an atlas of metal-binding small molecules is planned, which will be integrated into the institute's existing research in the field of metal trace and ultra-trace analysis in the aquatic environment and the rhizosphere.