Systems Biology of Lipid Metabolism

A new and rapidly developing research area in our group is plant lipid metabolism. In frame of this project we are taking an integrative approach involving high throughput transcript, protein and lipid analysis in order to better understand the physiological role of plant lipid metabolism as a biochemical system, but also to extend the knowledge on its single constituents: enzymatic and regulatory proteins, biochemical conversions and molecular lipid species.

We focus on two major goals. The first goal is establishing a link between gene expression and lipid composition of the plant biological membranes. This includes discovery of new enzymatic and regulatory proteins involved in lipid metabolism, but also the reevaluation of known biosynthetic pathways in context of substrate specificity and activity of the involved enzymes, subcellular localization, metabolic fluxes and physiological role in different environmental conditions. The second goal is identification of the system-scale events involving membrane lipids, such as dynamic changes of membrane composition in response to stress or the involvement of lipids in the modulation of carbon and phosphate pools available for cellular metabolism.

As a biological system we use the plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. In the near future we plan to extend our interests to other photosynthetic organisms, including the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the marine diatom algae Thalassiosira pseudonana, the cyanobacteria Synechocystis and a range of agriculturally important plants. From the experimental side we approach the research goals by means of functional and quantitative genomics, exploring the natural variability of lipid composition and the response of lipid composition to environmental perturbations. The analytical capabilities of our lab are based on a LC-MS (liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry) high throughput system, allowing identification and quantification of all major glycerolipid classes, summing up to more than 300 lipid species. In our research we integrate advanced statistical data analysis methods with classical molecular biology techniques.

References

Burgos, A., Szymanski, J., Seiwert, B., Degenkolbe, T., Hannah, M.A., Giavalisco, P. & Willmitzer, L. Analysis of short-term changes in the Arabidopsis thaliana glycerolipidome in response to temperature and light. Plant Journal 66, 656-668 (2011).

Szymanski, J., Brotman, Y., Willmitzer, L., Cuadros-Inostroza, Á. Linking gene expression and membrane lipid composition of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell 26(3), 915-928 (2014).

Go to Editor View