Federico Martinez-Seidel

Analysis of ribosome heterogeneity and specialization during Arabidopsis temperature acclimation

Research Project Summary:

My PhD project supports the hypothesis of what has been called the ribosomal code. An analogous figure to the histone code in which structural features of chromatin influence transcription. Specifically my project entails the Analysis of ribosome heterogeneity and specialization during Arabidopsis temperature acclimation. I am focusing in plants cytosolic translation. My main aim is to gather prove of a heterogeneity-based ribosome specialization in plants.

Project Supervisors:

• The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology: Dr Joachim Kopka
• The University of Melbourne: Professor Ute Roessner / Dr Berin Boughton

GR Student Profile:

During the last several years, my studies have been focused in plant post-translational ecology from the broadest perspective of systems biology. Specifically during my master, I have worked with plant molecular responses to biotic and abiotic stress. In doing so, I have realized that in order to fully understand the physiological mechanisms of plant response, systems biology provides a plethora of useful methods. Such methodologies allow plant scientists to accurate describe the changes in cellular metabolism at several stages (e.g. transcriptional, post-transcriptional control by transcription factors, translational control previous/during/post ribosome polypeptide synthesis, post-translational modification of proteins and finally regulation of metabolite pools). The precise quantitation accomplished by the use of bioinformatics relies largely in statistical sophistication and availability of mathematical algorithms suitable to model such networks. Thus, mathematical understanding of biology is the basis of my scientific interests.

GR Student Contact: MSeidel@mpimp-golm.mpg.de