Karsten Fischer

Company
Institute for Biology

Address
Faculty of Science
University of Tromsø

Telephone
+47 776 44114

E-mail
Karsten.Fischer@ib.uit.no

1. Summary of work to be allocated into a specific WG

This Partner is studying the role of plant cell organelles in stress responses mainly in Arabidopsis. The work is mostly integrated into WG3.

2. Links with other WG and/or Subgroups

The work is also linked with WG2.

3. Specific activities to be integrated into WG and/or Subgroubs

Research in our group at the institute for Biology is focused on the role of plastids and mitochondria in plant stress responses. One project is the molecular characterisation of cellular transport processes that play important roles in plant metabolism under ambient and stress conditions. Transport processes across the envelope membranes of plastids are important for the integration of these organelles into the metabolism of plant cells, for plastid-nucleus signalling and most probably for the response of plastids to abiotic stresses. One example are transporters of osmo-protective solutes which are synthesized in response to salt and drought stress. Therefore, the identification and molecular characterization of these membrane proteins will help to further understand the physiological function of plastids and of the role that plastids play in adaptional processes to abiotic stresses.

A second project is focused on understanding the regulation of the functional interactions between the organelles and the nucleus in plant cells under optimal as well as adverse environmental conditions. Here we concentrate on the identification and analysis of proteins affecting plastid and mitochondrial gene expression under abiotic stress conditions. In the recent past, a family of nuclear transcription factors involved in pathogen and stress response reactions was found to possess additional functional targeting sequences for plastids and mitochondria.Therefore, these putative dually targeted proteins are potential candidates for being regulatory switches that can affect the gene expression in two or more compartments and thereby contribute to stress response reactions.

4. Qualification for the role and current grants

Karsten Fischer is Professor at the Institute for Biology (Plant Physiology Unit) at the Faculty of Science at the University of Tromsø. He has more than 20 years of experience in studying transport processes in plastids. My co-worker Kirsten Krause has a long-standing experience in the regulation of organellar genes. The work is currently financed by three grants from the Norwegian Research Council.

5. Technical expertise and facilities 

A number of technologies for the characterisation of transport proteins and transcription factors have been established and refined in our lab. These include for example the heterologous expression of envelope membrane proteins in yeast, the determination of transport activities and the analysis of genetically modified plants.