In my postdoctoral project I use the yeast model system Pichia pastoris to produce multiple plant cell wall polysaccharides. Genes that are required for the synthesis of distinct polysaccharides are transformed into Pichia, integrated into the genome by heterologous recombination and the produced polysaccharide will be characterised by mass spectrometry and other methods. Polysaccharides that were already successfully produced by our group are for example (gluco)mannan and xyloglucan. The wall biosynthetic genes leading to the successful production of the individual polysaccharides will be co-transformed into Pichia. The abundance of the different polysaccharides is compared between strains that produce multiple wall polysaccharides. These strains will then be further transformed with plant factors that influence sugar pool distributions to the production of these polysaccharides. With such a study the goal is to unravel mechanisms that influence carbon allocation from the central carbon pool towards different wall polysaccharides.
+49 211 8115996
Institute for Plant Cell Biology and Biotechnology
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Universitätsstraße 1
22.07, Level 00 Postbox 004
40225 Düsseldorf
www.plant-cell.hhu.de