Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (M. hyopneumoniae) is a bacterial pathogen that has evolved from a gram-positive ancestor and specifically colonizes the lower respiratory tract of pigs where it causes enzootic pneumonia and plays a major role in the development of respiratory disease in pigs. Whole-cell inactivated vaccines are available that lower the se...
Plants have a sessile lifestyle. To ensure survival, they develop a potential to respond to environmental cues to set up an adaptive growth and development. This adaptation involves transcriptional reprogramming of the genome through chromatin-based mechanisms relying on the dynamic interplay of transcription factors (TFs), post-translational modif...
As a consequence of a sessile lifestyle, plants are constantly facing a fluctuating environment. In order to both profit maximally and protect themselves from these environmental cues, plants evolved ways to sense and respond to signals. Ambient temperature is one of the cues for which plants have acquired a strategy to enhance their chance of surv...
This thesis work aimed at a better understanding of the molecular basis of oriented cell division in plant cell. As, the efficiency of plant morphogenesis depends on oriented cell division, this work should contribute towards a fundamental understanding of the molecular basis of efficient plant morphogenesis. We describe a modelling framework that ...
Although most flowers follow a conserved 'bauplan' consisting of sepals, petals, stamens and carpels, there is a remarkable amount of morphological diversity. Interestingly, all flowers are specified by the conserved (A)BCE-model. Most of the transcription factors in this model belong to the MADS-domain family. We examined how these transcription f...
Adventitious root (AR) formation is indispensable in vegetative propagation and is widely used. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms is needed to improve rooting treatments. We first established a system to study rooting in Arabidopsis, the model organism in plant biology but only occasionally used to study adventitious rooting. Inhi...
Developmental processes are controlled by regulatory networks (GRNs), which are tightly coordinated networks of transcription factors (TFs) that activate and repress gene expression within a spatial and temporal context. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the key components and network structures of the GRNs controlling major plant reproduction processes, su...
De biologie krijgt snel het karakter van een datawetenschap. Miljarden gegevens over genomen, genen, eiwitten en andere moleculen worden in grote bestanden bij elkaar gebracht en systematisch onderzocht. Dit moet leiden tot meer basiskennis en begrip van levende organismen waarvan gewassen en vee aan de basis staan van de voedselvoorziening van de ...
Plants are sessile organisms. This characteristic severely limits their ability of approaching nutrients. To cope with this issue, plants evolved endosymbiotic relationships with soil fungi to extend their interface with surrounding environment. In case of arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) fungi this occurred about 400 million years ago. The AM fungi can...
Abstract During the life cycle, a plant undergoes a series of developmental phase changes. The first phase change is the transition from the initial juvenile vegetative stage into the adult vegetative phase. During the juvenile phase plants produce leaves and axillary buds, whereas during the adult phase the initiation of reproductive structures oc...
