The primary scientific goal of the Department of Plant Developmental Biology (Director: George Coupland) is to study molecular mechanisms that regulate the responsiveness of plant development to environmental cues. In particular, a strong emphasis is placed on understanding the mechanisms controlling the transition to flowering in response to environmental signals and in explaining the diversity in flowering responses observed between species.
The objective of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics (Director: Maarten Koornneef) is to extend our knowledge of processes that determine crucial aspects of plant growth and development, including plant architecture, plant metabolism and seed dormancy, using genetic and genomic tools. The application of molecular genetic methods has led to detailed insights into the molecular nature of the genetic differences and to a much better understanding of the processes underlying genetic differences in plant growth and development. This knowledge base provides new tools for plant breeders that will make plant breeding more efficient by using genetic markers that ‘ tag’ genes for traits of interest. For further development of these tools, more detailed knowledge of the function of the genes that display variation in nature and of the molecular basis of agronomically relevant traits is needed. Much of the natural variation in traits of interest is determined by multiple genes, and therefore shows complex genetic behaviour. Hence, methods of computational genetics, such as quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis and association mapping, are indispensable. It is expected that knowledge gained with these new tools will find practical application in plant breeding and will allow further improvement of crop plants.
Research in the Department of Plant Microbe Interactions (Director: Paul Schulze-Lefert) concentrates on fundamental molecular processes underlying interactions between plants and pathogens. The innate immune system of plants and mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis have a central role in the discovery programme. Researchers are pursuing an integrated approach that connects traditionally separate research territories like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and cell biology. Much of this work is focused on interactions between plants and filamentous pathogens such as fungi and oomycetes, two widespread classes of pathogenic microbes. Although the plant immune system ensures effective protection against most microbial pathogens, some intruders do succeed in colonising host plants. In such cases, plant immune receptors fail to recognise the pathogen, or the invader has evolved ways of suppressing immune responses. The goal is to define the regulatory network of the plant immune system in such detail that a prediction on how it will respond to specific changes in defined components is possible. This should provide insights into how the plant immune system can be modified, using molecular breeding techniques, so as to improve plant protection.
