Prof. Dr. Miguel A. Blázquez

Group Leader at the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology in Valencia, Spain, and Senior Researcher of the Spanish Scientific Research Council.

Miguel Ángel Blázquez is Group Leader at the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology in Valencia since 2001, when he became Staff Scientist of the Spanish Research Council. He studied Chemistry in the Autonomous University of Madrid and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry in 1995 for his work on a new regulatory mechanism of yeast glycolysis that has resulted later in the improvement of yeast industrial fermentation. As a postdoc, he joined the Plant Biology Lab at The Salk Institute in San Diego (California), where he studied the interaction between light and hormones in the control of flowering time, under the supervision of Prof. Detlef Weigel. 

Work in the Blázquez Lab is focused in the architecture of the signaling circuits that control early stages of plant development, and how plants integrate multiple signals to render the most appropriate response in each situation. He was appointed EMBO Young Investigator in 2003 and spent a sabbatical year in the Parcy Lab (CEA-CNRS, Grenoble, France).

 

       

Keynote Lecture 4: An ancestral mechanism for the coordination of transcriptional programs

   

Miguel A. Blázquez [a]

   
   

[a] Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (CSIC-U Politécnica de Valencia)

   
   

Plant survival depends on the optimal use of resources under largely variable environmental conditions. Among the different mechanisms that have been proposed to mediate the balance between growth, differentiation and stress responses, the regulation of transcriptional activity by DELLA proteins stands out. In Arabidopsis, DELLA accumulation has been shown to promote defence against biotic and abiotic stress and impair cell division and expansion, while loss of DELLA function has been associated to increased plant size and sensitivity towards stress. Given that DELLA protein stability is dependent on gibberellin (GA) levels, and GA metabolism is strongly influenced by the environment, DELLAs are thought to relay environmental information to the transcriptional programs that regulate growth and stress responses. However, DELLAs predate the emergence of GA metabolism, since they are found in the genomes of early-diverging non-vascular plants, while the active GAs and the GA receptor appear only in vascular plants.

 

We have investigated the role of the only DELLA in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha and found that it is preferentially expressed in the meristematic regions, and that increased DELLA levels cause reduced thallus growth. DELLA overexpression also impairs gemma dormancy and delays gametangiophore formation, resembling the phenotype of Mppif mutants. In addition, both genotypes show higher survival rates under oxidative stress thanks to an increased flavonoid production. Our results suggest that the function of the ancestral DELLA in the first land plants would already involve the coordination between growth and stress responses. Furthermore, we have analyzed DELLA structure and performed targeted DELLA-TF interactome studies in M. polymorpha and several other species, combined with complementation analyses in Arabidopsis dellaKO mutants. Our results indicate that DELLA’s interactome was established early during land plant evolution, given that most of DELLA-TF interactions are conserved. In summary, we propose that DELLA proteins already behaved as hubs in transcriptional networks in the ancestor of all land plants, while the strict conservation of their molecular and biological functions over the past 450 M years provides a measure of the high biological relevance of DELLA proteins for plant survival. 

   
     

 

 

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9:00 - 17:00

Registration

11:00 - 11:15

Welcome address

 

Danuše Nerudová
Rector, Mendel University in Brno

11:15 - 12:15 Opening Lecture

 

 

 

Dirk Inzé

The pivotal role of Plant Biology in a rapidly changing world

12:15 - 13:15 Keynote Lecture 01

 

 

 

Philip Wigge

Plants in a warming world

13:15 - 14:45  Lunch break & Poster Viewing Sessions
   
14:45 - 15:15 Talk M01
  George Komis
Conditional and developmental rearrangements of the plant cytoskeleton
15:15 - 15:30 Talk M02
  Antonio Pompeiano
Photosynthetic and growth responses of Arundo donax L. plantlets under different oxygen deficiency stresses and reoxygenation
15:30 - 15:45 Talk M03
  Iva Pavlović
Early response of white cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) to increased salinity: transcriptomic, hormonal and metabolic status

15:45 - 16:00 Talk M04
 

Tereza Dobisová
Non-invasive in planta Monitoring of Chlorophyll Biosynthesis

16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
   
16:30 - 17:30 Keynote Lecture 02

 

 

David Alabadí

Upstream and downstream events in DELLA-regulated growth and development

17:30 - 17:45 Talk M05
  Helene Robert Boisivon
Thermomorphogenesis during seed development In Arabidopsis and Brassica napus
17:45 - 18:00 Talk M06
  Sahu Pranav Pankaj 
Understanding the response of Arabidopsis under climate change scenarios
18:00 - 18:15 Talk M07
  Jozef Balla 
Auxin flow-mediated competition between axillary buds fine-tuned by other players
18:15 - 20:00   Welcome party, Poster and student talk session
   

 

9:30 - 10:15 Keynote Lecture 03

 

 

Peter Hedden

The role of gibberellin signaling in plant responses to abiotic stress

10:15 - 10:45 Talk T01
  Jan Hejátko

Cytokinins control xylem development via NAC SECONDARY WALL THICKENING PROMOTING FACTORs

10:45 - 11:15 Talk T02
  Marie-Theres Hauser
Metal ion sensing in cell walls
11:15 - 11:30 Talk T03
  Barbora Pařízková
iP & OEiP – a perfect couple to regulate plant development with high spatial resolution
11:30 - 12:00 Coffee break
   
12:00 - 13:00 Keynote Lecture 04

 

 

Miguel A. Blázquez

An ancestral mechanism for the coordination of transcriptional programs

13:00 - 13:30 Talk T04
  Tomáš Werner
Molecular mechanisms controlling cytokinin homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum
13:30 - 14:00 Talk T05
  Radomíra Vaňková
The role of cytokinins in optimal defense to abiotic and biotic stresses as well as pathogen attack strategy
14:00 - 15:30   Lunch break & Poster Viewing Sessions
   
15:30 - 16:30 Keynote Lecture 05

 

 

Thomas Schmülling

New chapters from cytokinin action in development and stress defense

16:30 - 17:30 Keynote Lecture 06

 

 

Karin Ljung

Auxin-cytokinin metabolism, transport and signaling during lateral root development

17:30 - 18:00 Coffee break
   
18:00 - 19:00 Keynote Lecture 07

 

 

Aaron Rashotte

Roles of Cytokinin Response Factors in different environmental stress responses

19:00 - 22:00

Conference dinner

9:00 - 10:00 Keynote Lecture 08

 

 

Mark Stitt

Budgeting carbon in a changing environment: Are plants better than bankers and politicians?

 

10:00 - 11:00 Keynote Lecture 09

 

 

Ondřej Novák

Phytohormone profiling at the cellular and subcellular levels

 

11:00 - 11:30

 Coffee break
   
11:30 - 11:45 Talk W01
  Hana Leontovyčová
Can actin depolymerization induce plant resistance?
11:45 - 12:00 Talk W02
  Parisa Rahimzadeh Karvansara

Sulfur metabolism in C4 and C3 plants, Similarities and differences

12:00 - 12:15 Talk W03
  Jan Skalák
Exploring natural variability in multistep phosphorelay for enhanced drought tolerance in plants
12:15 - 12:45 Talk W04
  Timothy O. Jobe

Plant mineral nutrition under changing environment

12:45 - 13:15 Talk W05
  Jozef Šamaj

Advanced microscopy for plant developmental and cell biology

13:15 - 13:45 Talk W06
  Miroslav Ovečka

Mitogen-activated protein kinases as developmental and stress-related modulators in plants

14:00 - 15:00 Lunch
   
15:00 - 16:00 Keynote Lecture 10

 

 

Ashverya Laxmi

Carbon control of shade avoidance responses in Arabidopsis

16:00 - 17:00 Keynote Lecture 11

 

 

Jutta Ludwig-Müller

Plant hormones in biotic interactions

17:00

Closing remarks

  Poster P01
 
Venkata Pardha S. Attuluri
Optimizing clearing methods for deeper imaging of fluorescent protein-expressing plant tissues
  Poster P02
  Kateřina Bělonožníková
The role of organic nitrogen source in plant nutrition
  Poster P03
  Miroslav Berka
Plant-pathogen interaction – proteomics and metabolomics analyses of Phytophthora infection in poplar
  Poster P04
  Hana Habánová
Seed quality under changing environmental conditions
  Poster P05
  Petra Hofmanová
Downregulation of PHOTOTROPIN 1 in Solanum lycopersicum L.
  Poster P06
 

Veronika Hýsková
Could heat shock or oomycete Pythium oligandrum treatment affect the course of viral infection in plants?

  Poster P07
 

Petra Jiroutová
Hormonal analysis of brassinosteroid biosynthetic mutant plants

  Poster P08
  Marek Klemš

Comparison of 14C-activity distribution after 14C-fluoranthene and 14C-glycine uptake by young pea plants

  Poster P09
  Markéta Luklová
A role of plant circadian rhythms as a regulator of plant hormone signaling and ROS signaling
  Poster P10
  Veronika Malých
Cytokinin modulates biotic interaction between Acremonium alternatum and Arabidopsis thaliana
  Poster P11
  Jana Oklešťková
Interactions between steroids in regulation of plant development
  Poster P12
  Helena  Ryšlavá 
What is the effect of seed treatment with Pythium oligandrum on the metabolism of rape plants?
  Poster P13
  Iñigo Saiz-Fernández 
Metabolomic response of Quercus variabilis during Phytophthora cinnamomi infection
  Poster P14
  Eva Nevrtalová
Whole transcriptome profiling of Silene vulgaris: molecular background of the copper tolerance in the non-model plant
  Poster P15
  Tereza Dobisová 
Seeding, the bottleneck of plant science
  Poster P16
  Archna Tiwari 
Carbon control of shade avoidance responses in Arabidopsis
  Poster P17
  Naghani Shekoufeh Ebrahimi 
Study of the involvement of light components pathway (PIF4 and PhyB) in high temperature response in inflorescence of Arabidopsis thaliana

Plant survival depends on the optimal use of resources under largely  
variable environmental conditions. Among the different mechanisms that  
have been proposed to mediate the balance between growth,  
differentiation and stress responses, the regulation of  
transcriptional activity by DELLA proteins stands out. In Arabidopsis,  
DELLA accumulation has been shown to promote defence against biotic  
and abiotic stress and impair cell division and expansion, while loss  
of DELLA function has been associated to increased plant size and  
sensitivity towards stress. Given that DELLA protein stability is  
dependent on gibberellin (GA) levels, and GA metabolism is strongly  
influenced by the environment, DELLAs are thought to relay  
environmental information to the transcriptional programs that  
regulate growth and stress responses. However, DELLAs predate the  
emergence of GA metabolism, since they are found in the genomes of  
early-diverging non-vascular plants, while the active GAs and the GA  
receptor appear only in vascular plants.

We have investigated the role of the only DELLA in the liverwort  
Marchantia polymorpha and found that it is preferentially expressed in  
the meristematic regions, and that increased DELLA levels cause  
reduced thallus growth. DELLA overexpression also impairs gemma  
dormancy and delays gametangiophore formation, resembling the  
phenotype of Mppif mutants. In addition, both genotypes show higher  
survival rates under oxidative stress thanks to an increased flavonoid  
production. Our results suggest that the function of the ancestral  
DELLA in the first land plants would already involve the coordination  
between growth and stress responses. Furthermore, we have analyzed  
DELLA structure and performed targeted DELLA-TF interactome studies in  
M. polymorpha and several other species, combined with complementation  
analyses in Arabidopsis dellaKO mutants. Our results indicate that  
DELLA’s interactome was established early during land plant evolution,  
given that most of DELLA-TF interactions are conserved. In summary, we  
propose that DELLA proteins already behaved as hubs in transcriptional  
networks in the ancestor of all land plants, while the strict  
conservation of their molecular and biological functions over the past  
450 M years provides a measure of the high biological relevance of  
DELLA proteins for plant survival.

 

  • Plant abiotic stress
  • Biotic interactions
  • Plant signalling
  • Phytohormones
  • Plant growth and development
  • Global change and sustainable agriculture


  

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