Novel transcription factors in higher plant plastids

叶绿体是植物中发生光合作用的细胞器，光合作用是地球上生命的基础。它们拥有自己的DNA，编码光合作用装置的重要组成部分，以及叶绿体自己的基因表达机制。对这一机制的调控依赖于核编码调控因子的输入；然而，大多数调控因子仍然未知。已知的基本成分，如RNA聚合酶和西格玛因子，不足以解释植物在适应不同环境条件过程中发生的复杂和动态的转录变化。我们来自生物化学和生物信息学的结果表明，在叶绿体中存在几种真核型转录因子，这似乎是导致这种变化的原因。该项目旨在通过生物化学和分子技术相结合的方法，在叶绿体中鉴定和鉴定这些新的转录因子。这一结果对于我们理解叶绿体基因的表达和植物对环境的响应具有重要意义，这对于生物技术在可持续生物质、能源和农业领域的应用具有很高的相关性。

Chloroplasts are the plant organelles in which photosynthesis takes place, the process which is the base for life on our planet. They possess own DNA which encodes important components of the photosynthetic apparatus and a chloroplast-own gene expression machinery. Regulation of this machinery depends on the import of nucleus- encoded regulatory factors; however, most of them are still unknown. Known basic components as RNA polymerases and sigma factors are not sufficient to explain the complex and dynamic transcription changes which occur during acclimation of plants to varying environmental conditions. Our results from biochemistry and bioinformatics indicate the existence of several eukaryotic-type transcription factors in plastids which appear to be responsible for such changes. The proposed project aims to identify and characterise such novel transcription factors in chloroplasts by combination of biochemical and molecular techniques. The results will be of high importance for our understanding of chloroplast gene expression and plant responses to the environment which has highly relevant for biotechnology applications in the field of sustainable biomass, energy and agriculture.