Mechanisms of Auxin-dependent Signaling in the Endoplasmic Reticulum

The phytohormone auxin has profound importance for plant development. In this proposal my main research objective is to unravel the importance of the ER for genomic auxin responses. The PIN-LIKES (PILS) putative carriers for auxinic compounds also localize to the ER and determine the cellular sensitivity to auxin. PILS5 gain-of-function reduces canonical auxin signaling (Barbez et al., 2012). I hypothesize that the genomic auxin response may be an integration of auxin- and auxin-metabolite-dependent nuclear and ER localized signaling, respectively. This proposed project aims to characterize a novel auxin-signaling paradigm in plants. We will employ state of the art interdisciplinary (biochemical, biophysical, computational modeling, molecular, and genetic) methods to assess the projected research. The identification of the proposed auxin conjugate-dependent signal could have far reaching plant developmental and biotechnological importance.