PRE2023-Maquinarias de ubiquitinación como nodos en el control de programas transcripcionales y epigenéticos en plantas(PID2022-142741NB-I00)

Crop yield has to increase dramatically to secure future food supplies due to a growing world population and changing climate. Development of high-yielding plant varieties with increased tolerance to abiotic stresses and to extensive farming practice is key within the frame of a sustainable and environmentally respectful agriculture. For this, understanding the regulatory networks that allow plants to integrate simultaneous stress signals and to translate them into adaptive growth and developmental changes is of up-most importance. CRL4-CDDD complexes act as hubs to integrate stress and environmental signals to trigger coherent adaptive and developmental plant responses. Moreover, CRL4-CDDD help to carve the epigenome landscape in response to light/dark transitions, leading to adaptive transcriptional reprogramming. Such a function is tightly connected with modulation of transcription elongation (TE) and RNA Pol II processivity. Thus, manipulation of CRL4-CDDD function holds a potential to finely regulate epigenome dynamics and targeted gene expression. In this project, the PhD candidate will characterize the role of CRL4-CDDD in controlling the activity of TE factors and RNA Pol II. For this, molecular, biochemical, proteomics, and epigenomics approaches will be used. The expected results will uncover molecular mechanisms with agrotech potential that allow plant adaptation to environmental changes, leading to technologies towards increased crop yield and stress tolerance