MSc defense Christa Kanstrup

Title of MSc Thesis

Gain-of-Function Transporters.
Development of a screening system for high-throughput identification and Application in transport engineering of specialized metabolites

Abstract

Plants produce an extensive amount of valuable specialized metabolites. They have many applications for humans as pharmaceuticals, flavoring and coloring agents but are often produced in small amounts in planta. Hence increasing the amount of specialized metabolites in plants may be of great interest in agriculture and industry. Transport engineering is an emerging approach that targets membrane transporters for modulating concentrations of metabolites in plants. By removing specific transporters, transport engineering has already been used to eliminate the accumulation of toxic specialized metabolites from edible parts of crops. In principle, transport engineering could also be used to increase the amount of specialized metabolites in target tissues. 

In my master thesis, I focused on biochemical characterization of an identified gain-of-function glucosinolate transporter, developing high-throughput screening methods for identifying and understanding the molecular basis of gain-of-function mutations in GTR transporters and lastly on implementing a transport engineering approach using hyperactive glucosinolate transporter mutants in Arabidopsis and monitoring the effect on seed accumulation. 

Censor

Senior Researcher Morten Nørholm, DTU- Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability

Supervisor

Associate Professor Hussam H. Nour-Eldin, DynaMo Center, KU-Science