Nitric oxide and ohytohormones in stress-development crosstalk

Plants use heavily interconnected signaling pathways to coordinate and execute different developmental and defence-related programs thus ensuring the definition of hierarchy and the optimization of resources through the use of signaling nodes. Most of these signaling pathways are regulated by phytohormones. Lately, we are also studying the functional role of Nitric Oxide as a general co-regulator. Our approach to study this process involves the generation and molecular and functional characterization of mutants or transgenic lines with altered function of two or more hormone-regulated pathways. Our final goal is the generation of enough data to allow the modelling of the hormonal functional connection in the development-defence interaction. This sort of model will allow the prediction of plant responses in the context of different environmental contexts and furthermore the generation of genetic modifications that make plants more tolerant to adverse conditions.