[Seminars] PSB event reminder

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Calendar Name: seminars
Scheduled for: Monday, October 25 2010, 14:00 - 15:30
Event text:    Alison M. Smith
	       
	       John Innes Centre
	       
	       Norwich
	       UK
Details:       "How plants survive the night"
	       
	       ABSTRACT
	       Although plants make sugars from atmospheric carbon
	       dioxide in the process of photosynthesis, they face
	       problems of carbohydrate supply on a daily basis. First,
	       most of the cells in a plant are heterotrophic –
	       dependent for their carbon supply on carbohydrate (in
	       the form of sucrose) imported from the relatively small
	       number of photosynthetic cells in the leaves. Second,
	       plants can photosynthesise only during the day - every
	       night all of the cells of the plant become dependent
	       upon the mobilisation of carbohydrate (in the form of
	       starch) synthesised and stored during the day. Mutant
	       plants that cannot synthesise starch during the day or
	       cannot degrade it at night usually have reduced growth
	       rates. 
	       My lab is trying to understand the diurnal control of
	       starch storage and mobilisation in leaves of the model
	       plant Arabidopsis, using forward and reverse genetic
	       approaches. I will present our progress in defining the
	       surprisingly complex pathway of starch degradation at
	       night, and discuss how flux through this pathway is
	       controlled to ensure that supplies of carbohydrate last
	       until dawn. Our recent work shows that the circadian
	       clock plays a central role in controlling carbohydrate
	       availability at night, and this in turn determines the
	       overall productivity of the plant. Finally I will
	       describe unexpected findings about the ways in which
	       non-photosynthetic cells mobilise the sucrose they
	       receive from the leaves.

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