Plant Transportomics: Villum Investigator Project

Unleashing the potential of transport engineering for improved traits

Professor Barbara Ann Halkier was awarded the Villum Investigator grant in 2021 aimed at determining the function of plant transporters and decoding the chemical language of plants to generate knowledge and molecular tools with application in sustainable agriculture. The grant size is 30 mill. DKK and has a duration of 6 years.

Project describtion

Transport of metabolites across cellular borders is essential for plant fitness and survival, and has proven important in controlling key quality traits in agriculture. Yet, the function of thousands of transporters is largely unknown. As a major transportomics endeavor, we will biochemically determine at an unprecedented scale the substrate specificity of the transporters of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. As a novel idea, we will measure transporter activity against plant extracts with complex mixtures of metabolites as substrates. With the data, we will create first-of-its-kind database with transporter activity as a major knowledge resource and as a discovery platform for transporter identification.

Allocation of plants’ dazzling array of diverse metabolites is essential for plants’ ability to communicate and interact with their surroundings, e.g. to combat (a)biotic stresses. We will apply state-of-the-art metabolomics and transcriptomics to map the phytochemicals exuded and the transporters present at the root and leaf epidermal borders upon a range of (a)biotic stresses when intense communication occurs.

By using our database to link transporter specificity with exuded phytochemicals and transporters present at the root and leaf epidermis under a range of stress conditions, we will identify physiologically relevant metabolite(s)-transporter pairs at these external borders, where intense signaling occur. This will provide a set of molecular tools to begin decoding the ‘what, how and why’ in plants’ communication and interaction with the surroundings.

Press release