Steffen Graether

Department
Email Address
[email protected]
Research Areas
Research Keywords
Research Description

We are interested in understanding how plants are able to withstand cold temperatures and drought using a family of proteins known as "late embryogenesis abundant proteins." We use biophysical techniques to understand the proteins structure and how it works, and bioinformatics to figure out what parts of the protein are important.

Research Summary

The main goal of our research program is to understand how the intrinsically disordered late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are able to protect plants from damage caused by cold, drought and high salinity. Our main focus has been on dehydrins, a group of abiotic stress response proteins that have been shown to protect plants from damage caused by drought and cold. Dehydrins are interesting in that they are composed of a variable number of conserved motifs that appear to have roles in protection of proteins, membranes and DNA from abiotic damage, as well as roles in localization.

Techniques Used

De novo motif discovery, phylogenetic analysis, protein bioinformatics analysis, NMR, circular dichroism, cryoprotective assays, protein expression and purification.

Lab Equipment

FPLC, HPLC, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic light scattering (DLS), fluorometry.

Locations of international collaborators

Universidad de la Frontera (Chile); Instituto Potosino (Mexico); Université de Sfax (Tunisia).

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