Institute of Experimental Botany AS CR
We are Discovering the Plant World

Supervisor: RNDr. David Honys, Ph.D.
Consultant: RNDr. Věra Čapková, CSc., Said Hafidh, Ph.D. 
Preliminary topic:
Gene expression (not only) in plants is regulated at many levels. Beyond the basic level of transcription it is particularly translation, which can respond much faster to the current physiological state of cells, by controlled transcript activation and their proper localisation. Storage, transport and localized translation of mRNAs as a powerful tool for controlling gene expression is involved in key regulatory processes, including morphogenesis (eg, flower induction and seed plants or more familiar embryogenesis in fruit flies). Male gametophyte represents an excellent and simple model introduced by our laboratory for studies of the translation regulation. In pollen and tip-growing pollen tube, the phenomena of mRNA storage, transportation, and its localized translation: mRNA molecules and pollen tube proteins are stored in vast quantities in the form of specific ribonucleoprotein particles which are immediately after pollen germination transported to their destination (to tip) and keep translated. The aim of the work will be (1) cloning of constructs enabling the localization of specific ribonucleoprotein particles in the male gametophyte and (2) their use for plant transformation and RNP localization.