RUB AG Pfl. One project is aimed at molecular aspects of plant developmental biology. Plant cells contain unique organelles termed plastids, which are the important sites of photosynthesis and major biosynthestic pathways.
Plastids have their own system for signalling of genetic information and gene expression.
As part of this project, we are studying plastid proteins involved in the control of organellar gene expression such as transcription factors and RNA binding proteins. We are interested in the site of synthesis and coding site of these factors and in the isolation and characterization of their genes. Plastid transcription involves two RNA polymerase forms that differ in structural composition, function and intracellular origin. This criteria has become the basis for studying the role of these enzymes in intact plant using in vivo rif labelling. RNA levels of a subset of genes for plastid proteins were reduced by rif, while others remained unaffected, indicating a differential role of the A versus B polymerases.