PREDOC2023 (CM)-Uncovering the molecular mechanisms of arsenic perception in plants.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying stress perception and growth adaptation to the intensity of stress is a major goal of biology. This is particularly relevant at present, since climatic models predict that crops will face severe environmental conditions, particularly extreme temperatures, drought, pests, low nutrient regimes or the sudden availability of toxic compounds. Among all toxic compounds present in the biosphere, arsenic contamination in soils and waters are particularly serious in rice, being the most important entry of arsenic in the human food chain. In our laboratory we are involved in the characterization of the molecular mechanisms underlying arsenic perception in plants. Our results uncover a complex regulatory network that tightly coordinates the amount of arsenic perceived by plants with its uptake and detoxification capacity. Our goal is the identification of a master regulator of the arsenic response critical for arsenic perception. In this project we aim to perform a systematic identification of arsenic binding transcription factors, to identify master regulators that sense arsenic. Finally, we aim to identify and characterize the corresponding arsenic orthologues in rice. The results obtained in this proposal will be a first step towards the characterization of these regulatory proteins in rice, an essential crop for feeding millions of human beings. This is particularly relevant since rice accumulates large amounts of arsenic and suffers importan