Molecular mechanism of selective autophagy-mediated heat stress tolerance in plants

• Applicant: Professor Yasin Dagdas, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Plant Cell and Developmental Biology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566190050

This project aims to understand how plants use a process called selective autophagy to cope with heat stress, which is becoming increasingly important due to global climate change. Selective autophagy is a cellular recycling mechanism that helps plants remove damaged or unwanted proteins and organelles, allowing them to adapt to stressful conditions like erratic heat waves. The project focuses on three newly discovered families of proteins that act as "cargo receptors" and mediate selective protein degradation in this process. These receptors help identify and deliver specific damaged proteins to the autophagy machinery for degradation. The main goals of the project are: 1. Characterize the Role of New Cargo Receptors: We will study how these newly identified receptors interact with the autophagy machinery and how they are recruited to the sites of damage during heat stress. We will also perform structure-function analaysis of these proteins to identify specific regions that are crucial for their function. 2. Identify the Cargo: We will identify which damaged proteins are targeted by these receptors during heat stress. This will help understand why certain proteins become harmful under stress and how they are selectively removed. 3. Test Physiological Relevance: We will use genetic tools to create plants that lack these receptors and study how they perform under heat stress. This will show whether these receptors are essential for plant survival during extreme temperatures. 4. Understand Regulation: We will explore how the activity of these receptors is controlled to prevent them from degrading healthy cellular components, ensuring that autophagy is only activated when needed. By the end of the project, we will have a detailed understanding of how these receptors help plants survive heat stress. This knowledge could be used to develop crops that are more resilient to climate change, ultimately helping to secure global food production in the face of rising temperatures.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants