The Unité de Recherche en Biologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire Végétale (URBV) studies plant organisms at the cellular and molecular levels. The topics covered focus mainly on polysaccharide metabolism using modern techniques, including transgenesis and molecular markers.
Promoter (PI) | Johan Messiaen
Johan Messiaen is a member of the Institute of Life, Earth and Environment (ILEE). He is also a member of the Unité de Méthodologie et de Didactique de la Biologie (UMDB).
Fine and complete understanding of how a plant functions is a goal that is not close to being achieved.
Even if a project is working across the Atlantic to elucidate the function of all the genes in Lady's Slipper (Arabidopsis thaliana), a model plant whose genome was recently sequenced, the complexity of plant organisms still resists researchers' analysis for a long time to come.
In fact, higher plants contain as much genetic information as the most sophisticated animal organisms, and they resemble them in many respects in their structure and function.
The Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Unit focuses its activities on the study of structural and reserve polysaccharides in plants, and the enzymatic systems that synthesize and/or degrade them.
Thus, on the one hand, we study plant cell wall polysaccharides (mainly pectins) in relation to ion exchange, wall cohesion and the transduction of morphogenesis (floral transition, maturation) and defense signals.
On the other hand, we are pursuing more applied research on carbon allocation (inulin produced by industrial chicory).
Through regional collaborations, we are developing a genomic and proteomic approach to the enzymatic systems involved in inulin synthesis and depolymerization.