Elena Baena-Gonzalez - How do plants manage their energy?

Management of energy resources is important for the survival of all living organisms. Energy management occurs at the cellular level to support processes that are most relevant for a particular environment or developmental stage but also at the whole organism level where an efficient coordination of activities in different tissues and organs is required for optimal use of available resources and proper growth and development. In plants energy management is a major determinant of crop productivity, as it affects processes such as stress tolerance flowering, branching, senescence, or seed filling. However, how the energy management network operates is poorly understood. One major component of this network is the SnRK1 protein kinase complex. SnRK1 undergoes activation under conditions of energy deficiency, shifting the cell’s metabolism from anabolic towards a catabolic mode and consequently playing pivotal roles in carbon allocation and remobilization during stress but also in normal conditions. In this talk I will present our strategies and progress in the dissection of the poorly understood SnRK1 signaling pathway, as a first step towards understanding how plants manage their resources and how plant growth is modified in response to the environment.