Van Esse Group - Plant architecture and development

How do plants grow? A seemingly simple question, however beneath the surface there is much to learn. Within many of our crops, there is limited knowledge at the molecular level on the development of different yield related organs such as side shoots and seeds in relation to their environment. This knowledge is important, as different yield components are often negatively correlated, which makes optimizing yield in a sustainable way difficult.

The trade-off between yield components is hard to address due to a lack of knowledge on the molecular-genetic networks that control the development of different yield related organs. Key to addressing this knowledge gap is understanding the role of transcriptional regulatory networks, and the natural variation therein, on plant architecture and developmental timing. Many of our crop species have large genomes and are characterized by extensive gene duplication events that occurred independently in flowering time and plant architecture genes, which has led to diversification in the functions of these genes (sub-and neofunctionalization).

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Studying the role of flowering time and plant architecture genes in plant organ development and developmental timing in model species like Arabidopsis and rice is thus often insufficient to understand their function in other species such as the temperate cereals barley and wheat. Understanding the evolution, functional conservation and divergence of molecular networks that control plant development and architecture are amongst the core research areas of this team.

Our long term goal is to build a solid fundamental understanding of the genes and molecular networks that control plant architecture and development.

Group members