Group leader: Núria Sánchez Coll

Research project:

The role of biomolecular condensates in proteostasis during plant immune responses

Plants are endowed with highly sophisticated immune systems that must dynamically respond to attempted pathogen invasion. The field has witnessed tremendous advances on the mechanisms controlling pathogen perception and activation of immune receptors and subsequent immune signaling to prevent/halt pathogen proliferation. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on how the system is turned down after the stress has subdued. Defects in inhibition of immunity result in growth/yield penalties. In the lab we have shown that specific members of a family of cysteine proteases, metacaspases (MCs), are involved in the regulation of immunogenic cell death -also known as the hypersensitive response-. In addition, we have shown that AtMC1 regulates protein homeostasis and it is recruited to stress granules, a particular type of biomolecular condensate, during various forms of proteotoxic stress. In this project we will investigate the role of AtMC1-containing biomolecular condensates in immunogenic cell death and immune responses, determining their dynamics, composition, mechanistic requirements, and specific role in the context of shutting down immune responses.

Key publication

Salguero-Linares J, Serrano I, Ruiz-Solani N, Salas-Gómez M, Phukan UJ, González VM, Bernardo-Faura M, Valls M, Rengel D, Coll NS. Robust transcriptional indicators of immune cell death revealed by spatiotemporal transcriptome analyses. MOLECULAR PLANT. 2022;15(6):1059-1075. doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2022.04.010

Potential collaborations with other research groups

Potential collaborations with associated partners

• Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB)
• Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Technologies (ICN2)
• Centre for Mathematical Research (CRM)

More information