Batoko H.

MOLECULAR PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANT ABIOTIC STRESS

GROUP LEADER

HENRI BATOKO	Profile
	Prof. Henri Batoko is the group leader of the research group working on molecular physiology of plant abiotic stress within the Unit of Plant Biology. Master’s Degree and PhD in plant sciences at UCL (1997). Postdoctoral training at UCL (1997-1998), at the University of Oxford, UK (1998-2002). Research Associate of the FNRS and Associate Professor at UCL since 2002. Fields of expertise:  Plant molecular biology Membrane trafficking Plant cell biology-live cell imaging Plant Biochemistry Plant Biotechnology
Unité de Biologie végétale   Bt. Carnoy (b.337) 5 Croix du Sud (Box 15) B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve-Belgium	Email : Tel. +32 10 47 92 65 Fax. +32 10 47 38 72

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

We are using mainly the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana to understand, beside their function, the transcriptional and post-translational regulations of key selected salt or water stress-induced genes in plant.

Although many stress-specific genes have been characterized in plants, the issue of how plants readjust the level of an induced protein when normal physiological conditions resume has not been addressed. In particular, how, when and where induced proteins requiring the secretory pathway for their final destination in the cell (membrane-bound or soluble), are targeted for degradation when their activities become irrelevant await answers.

Our ultimate goal is to understand how tangling up with either of the aforementioned characteristics of a particular gene product, may affect the plant responses to subsequent round of exposure to the same stress conditions.

A multidisciplinary approach (functional genomics, reverse genetics, physiology, heterologous expression, biochemistry, biophysics…) is used to investigate each of those points for our candidate genes of interest.

We are currently focussing on a Golgi/endoplasmic reticulum-localised membrane protein (MPS- Membrane Protein highly induced by Salt and osmotic stress), and trehalase, a key enzyme of trehalose metabolism in plant.

Web of a plant cell ER (Endoplasmic Reticulum)

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