Our laboratory has a general interest in understanding the control of growth and production of plant products. We are concentrating our efforts in the effects of organ identity genes and circadian regulation on the growth and development of plant lateral organs. These include flowers, fruits and seeds.
We are currently working with two plant systems Petunia x hybrida and Antirrhinum majus to elucidate the effect of circadian regulation on late petal development. The parameters we are studying include growth kinetics, final size and scent production as a function of the organ size and identity. We are using a variety of mutants affected in the core clock, organ identity and cell polarity to identify the degree of importance of the default and circadian pathways on petal growth and development. We use a combination of genomics, genetics, metabolomics and artificial vision systems to tackle the questions formulated.
Recently we got interested in understanding the growth kinetics of seed and fruit productions and we are developing tools to study seed growth and protein accumulation in legumes.