Overview

Plants are a primary source of nutrients, chemicals, and materials for humans. Our program aims to generate fundamental knowledge on plant physiology and metabolism and to use this knowledge to improve crops through plant synthetic and metabolic engineering approaches. We are interested in deciphering the control of primary and secondary metabolism for the production of high-quality bioproducts and the enhancement of plant performance and yield. Furthermore, by using a synthetic biology framework, we aim to contribute to the advancement of basic plant research and provide novel biotechnological tools.

In particular, our Program addresses the study of the regulation of isoprenoid and lignin biosynthetic pathways, the organization of the cell endomembrane system, the fixation of carbon through photosynthesis, and the development of microalgae as a bioengineering and synthetic biology platform. These pathways and processes impact yield, fruit and seed quality, nutritional content, digestibility, bioenergetic value, and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress. Our work aims to develop technologies to reprogram plant cells, including the design of genetic circuits for fine tuning gene expression, the design of novel metabolic pathways, and the use of plant cells as biofactories to express molecules of therapeutic interest.

The experimental approaches emerge from the biochemistry, genetics, molecular, and cell biology fields, and include advanced plant/microalgae system methodologies with transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic analyses. A substantial part of the research activities is performed in well-established models (Marchantia or Arabidopsis), crop plants (tomato, rice, and maize), and microalgae (Chlamydomonas and Chlorella).

Publications

López-Tubau J.M.; Laibach N.; Burciaga-Monge A.; Alseekh S.; Deng C.; Fernie A.R.; Altabella T.; Ferrer A.

Differential impact of impaired steryl ester biosynthesis on the metabolome of tomato fruits and seeds (2025) Physiologia Plantarum, vol. 177 (1), Art. number e70022 (DOI:10.1111/ppl.70022)

Li Y.; Perez-Gil J.; Lois L.M.; Varejão N.; Reverter D.

Broad-spectrum ubiquitin/ubiquitin-like deconjugation activity of the rhizobial effector NopD from Bradyrhizobium (sp. XS1150) (2024) Communications Biology, vol. 7 (1), Art. number 644 (DOI:10.1038/s42003-024-06344-w)

Calderone S.; Mauri N.; Manga-Robles A.; Fornalé S.; García-Mir L.; Centeno M.-L.; Sánchez-Retuerta C.; Ursache R.; Acebes J.-L.; Campos N.; García-Angulo P.; Encina A.; Caparrós-Ruiz D.

Diverging cell wall strategies for drought adaptation in two maize inbreds with contrasting lodging resistance (2024) Plant Cell and Environment, vol. 47 (5), pp. 1747 -1768 (DOI:10.1111/pce.14822)

Xu S.; Akhatayeva Z.; Liu J.; Feng X.; Yu Y.; Badaoui B.; Esmailizadeh A.; Kantanen J.; Amills M.; Lenstra J.A.; Johansson A.M.; Coltman D.W.; Liu G.E.; Curik I.; Orozco-terWengel P.; Paiva S.R.; Zinovieva N.A.; Zhang L.; Yang J.; Liu Z.; Wang Y.; Yu Y.; Li M.

Genetic advancements and future directions in ruminant livestock breeding: from reference genomes to multiomics innovations (2024) Science China Life Sciences, (Article in press), (DOI:10.1007/s11427-024-2744-4)

Piccinini L.; Nirina Ramamonjy F.; Ursache R.

Imaging plant cell walls using fluorescent stains: The beauty is in the details (2024) Journal of Microscopy, vol. 295 (2), pp. 102 -120 (DOI:10.1111/jmi.13289)