Cell membrane nanodomains: a role in plant osmotic signaling – CellOsmo

Climate change, world population growth and decrease in agricultural lands impose strong constraints on ecosystems, as is the case of water bio-availability. In the coming decades, it will be mandatory to adapt food production in a more thrifty way, as agriculture is the first user of fresh water stocks. Acquiring fundamental knowledge on plant water usage is consequently becoming a challenge.

Whereas phenotypic plasticity of plant (growth and organgenesis) in response to water scarcity is well study, very little is known about the cell signalling events that lead to perception and transduction of the hydric signal. In this prospect CellOsmo tries to better understand plant membrane signalling by innovative cell biology technics. For instance, super resolution microscopy will allow deciphering with unprecedented details molecular mechanics that are initiate minutes after hydric stress application.

CellOsmo aims at (i) identifying new genetic factors that are involve in this perception pathway, but also (ii) finding allelic variant from natural population by association genetic. These different components will be then use to establish a multiscale functional model, from the single molecule to adaptation of natural population.

Of course, the development of agricultural tools or products is beyond the scope of our work. However, one of the major short-term impacts of this work is our future ability to question the relation between stress perception and plant phenotypic plasticity. Especially, (i) how does osmotic perception influence plant fitness and (ii) do allelic variations in genes involved in osmotic perception impact plant adaptation to their environment? Answering these two questions is a prerequisite to further determine if the molecular players involved in osmosensing may be ultimately used in crop selection