Gene expression and stress

Our group is interested in understanding the underlying metabolic processes and molecular mechanisms that control gene expression under plant stress. Our research goal is devoted to determine the molecular bases of plant-virus compatibility by identifying regulatory processes and cell components as modulators of plant susceptibility and disease during viral infections. To this aim, we exploit a number of "omic" strategies such as epigenetics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, genetics and functional genomics. Our work plan has two major research interests: 1) understanding the role of transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene silencing in the regulation of viral and host genomes in the course of plant-virus interactions, and 2) elucidating inmune signaling pathways involved in the antiviral resistance response in plants.