Meeting Programme

The regulation of cell-to-cell communication during pathogen invasion
- Cell-to-cell communication is a fundamental biological process, necessary for co-ordination of development and environmental responses in multicellular organisms. The receptor-like protein AtLYM2 is located at plasmodesmata and mediates chitin-triggered changes to cell-to-cell communication during fungal pathogen invasion . AtLYM2 functions independently of the chitin receptor CERK1 and thus identifies that there are multiple chitin perception mechanisms in plants.

Delineating the genetic and chemical vulnerability of anti-infective drug targets
- The equity of a drug target is majorly evaluated by its genetic vulnerability with tools ranging from antisense and microRNA driven knockdowns to induced expression of the target protein. In order to upgrade the process of antibacterial target identification and discern its most effective type of inhibition, an in silico tool box that evaluates its genetic and chemical vulnerability leading either to stasis or cidal outcome was constructed and validated.

Dissecting out the complex trait of abiotic stress tolerance in plants: will a systems biology approach be of some help?
- Abiotic stresses cause a significant decline in crop yield worldwide. We are trying to dissect of the complex trait of salinity and drought response in rice plants. Contemporary tools of transcriptomics, proteomics, Ionomics, metabolomics etc are being used to understand the response of rice seedlings towards these stresses. One of the important conclusion which can be drawn easily from these analysis is that the response is quite complex in nature. Hundereds of genes, proteins and metabolites are found to be up regulated or down regulated in rice seedlings within few minutes of salinity stress. The question still remains with us - which gene shall we engineer? which genes should be pyramided? will systems biology approach provide a solution to this? We have picked up a set of "candidate genes" from this list and have used the tools of functional genomics to validate the role of these unknown genes in stress tolerance. Data pertaining to these experiments will be discussed.

Optimisation of Photosynthesis by Multiple Intracellular Compartments in Plant Cells: A Systems Biochemistry Outlook
Key metabolic processes in plant cells depend on dynamic inter-organelle interactions. The crosstalk between compartments is mediated by multiple signals, such as, metabolite movements, redox status and even pH. My talk would describe the signalling network between chloroplasts, mitochondria, peroxisomes, and cytoplasm, which achieves not only optimisation of photosynthesis but also protects against photoinhibition.