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Coordination: Sylvie Dinant

Industrial partner: Roullier /  Centre Mondial d’Innovation - Roullier

In higher plants, the vascular tissues operate the coordinated allocation of water, minerals and nutrients and they act as superhighways for long distance signalling. They also serve as a pathway for the systemic colonisation of the plants by many pathogens, and as a food stock for several arthropod guilds. Because plant nutrition depends on the activity of these tissues, a broad spectrum of stresses, due to pests, pathogens or nutritional defects, triggers early events in the vascular tissues, and the mounting of plant defences against multiple stresses depends on the plant nutritional status, especially on carbon allocation and potassium nutrition. Hence the C and K status, which also depicts the vascular activity, is critical for plant physiology and its ability to mount defences against multiple stresses.

The aim of PlantBioTools project is to implement a set of tools for monitoring both carbon and potassium nutritional status linked to plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Some markers associated with stress responses are already developed in our laboratories and will be validated during the project on a broader range of stresses. Altogether, this toolbox will allow the monitoring of plant physiological status. This tool will also be used to monitor or validate the biological activities of plant biostimulants or plant biofortifiers developed or marketed by the industrial partner of this project.

This project is realized in the frame of a private-academic contract.