WALLNET · Functional genomics for biogenesis of the plant cell wall
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2005-05-01 → 2009-04-30
- EU contribution
- €1,865,788
- Participants
- 10
- Scheme
- RTN
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners. CORDIS does not always give exact coordinates for projects before 2014. These points are placed at city or country level.
Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - WALLNET (Functional Genomics for Biogenesis of the Plant Cell Wall)
The WALLNET project had a duration of 4 years, and 15 young researchers have been employed for a total of more than 25 person years. 10 laboratories in 7 different countries participated. The joint project was focused on determining how plants synthesise their cell wall. The cell wall is very important for plants ability to stand upright and to protect itself against the environment. Furthermore, the plant cell wall is the source of many products of great economic importance and comprise major components of food and feed. The consortium has developed a large set of tools for investigation plant cell walls. These tools include antibodies that recognise specific types of polysaccharides present in the cell wall. Also the consortium has isolated genes for more than 100 enzymes involved in making the plant cell wall and developed methods to study the genes and the proteins they encode. The consortium also made more than 100 different plant mutant lines lacking one or more of these proteins. These tools have enabled to consortium to discover many important aspects of cell wall biosynthesis. The most important outcome of the project - and always the main goal of this training network, is that the young researchers have been trained and exposed to international collaboration. The WALLNET RTN has been highly successful scientifically and as a networking opportunity for a large number of involved researchers, both those funded directly by WALLNET as well as the PIs and other key group members. The topic of WALLNET was the biosynthesis of plant cell walls. Lately, this area has received a tremendous interest due to the prospects of using plant biomass as a source of renewable energy. The scientific knowledge obtained in WALLNET is very valuable to these new research efforts and the persons involved in WALLNET have been ideally prepared for the current efforts.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Plant cells are surrounded by a strong wall composed mainly of polysaccharides. This wall is essential for the form of the plant and allows the plant to stand upright, and the wall is the first line of defence against invading pathogens. Very little is known about how the wall polysaccharides are formed and integrated into the wall. Many enzymes are necessary for biosynthesis of the polysaccharides; the majority are glycosyltransferases (GTs) but also transglycosidases are involved.The overall objective of the project is to assign function to genes involved in the biogenesis of plant cell wall polysaccharides. A functional genomics strategy will be pursued using Arabidopsis thaliana as the model:1) Development and use of bioinformatics to predict which open reading frames are involved in cell wall biosynthesis.2) Reverse genetics. A high throughput approach will allow investigation of at least 100 GTs. Clones will be produced in GateWay entry vectors for the easy sub-cloning in vectors for expression, epitope tagging etc. The activities of heterologously expressed enzymes will be determined using assays developed in the project.3) Novel analytical tools for characterization of polysaccharides in the mutants will be developed and applied including antibodies and carbohydrate binding modules for in situ polysaccharide analysis, mass spectrometry, polysaccharide sequencing, substrate-chips for surface plasmon resonance, glyco-chips for activity screening etc.4) Protein-protein interactions between the identified enzymes and other proteins will be investigated by proteomics, epitope tagging and bioimaging.The network consists of 10 partners from 7 countries and will provide an outstanding environment for training of young researchers. In addition to the training implied in carrying out a challenging research project with frequent exchange between the partner laboratories, the network will implement a formal training program consisting of courses and workshops.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- Københavns Universitet · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) · PARISFrance
- DANISH INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES · TJELECountry levelDenmark
- INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE AGRONOMIQUE · PARISFrance
- INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY, SLOVAK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES · BRATISLAVACity levelSlovakia
- MAX PLANCK SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE · MUENCHENCity levelGermany
- THE CHANCELLOR, MASTER AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGECity levelUnited Kingdom
- UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS · LEEDSUnited Kingdom
- UNIVERSITÃ DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA Â RLA SAPIENZAÂ · ROMEItaly
- WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY · WAGENINGENNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union