Reactive Oxygen Species

Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are highly reactive molecules formed as natural byproducts of cellular metabolism in plants. These molecules include superoxide radicals (O2•−), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hydroxyl radicals (•OH), and singlet oxygen (^1O2). 
While ROS play crucial roles in various physiological processes, including growth, development, and defense responses, excessive accumulation of ROS can lead to cellular damage, known as oxidative stress.

BIOSTIMULANTS FROM NATURE

Biostimulants can improve crop productivity in a sustainable way and offer a plausible alternative to the heavily criticized synthetic agrochemicals. To achieve their full potential a science-based understanding of their beneficial effects and avenues for fine-tuning of their bioactivities are of utmost importance.
Frank Van Breusegem's group joins this effort with a set of proprietary Arabidopsis lines crucial for a mode of action discovery and know-how and expertise in chemical biology and stress signaling.

CysQuant

CysQuant is a new method for accurately measuring the oxidation levels of cysteine residues in proteins, which is crucial for understanding protein function in redox regulation. It utilizes isotopologues of iodoacetamide to label differentially reduced and reversibly oxidized cysteines, analyzed through data-dependent acquisition (DDA) or data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS).

The Plant PTM Viewer 2.0

Plant PTM Viewer is a centralized resource for plant post-translational modifications (PTMs) intuitive for wet- and dry-lab scientists.

Plant PTM Viewer provides innovative tools to analyze the potential role of PTMs for specific proteins or in a broader systems biology context.

Metacaspase Research at the Van Breusegem Lab 

Metacaspases (MCs) are a family of cysteine proteases discovered due to their structural similarity to animal caspases. Unlike caspases, however, metacaspases are found exclusively in non-metazoan organisms and have a unique ability to cleave proteins at lysine and arginine residues. MCs are categorized into three types based on their domain architecture: Type-I and Type-II MCs are present in plants, while Type-III MCs are specific to algae.

Why a focus on retrograde signaling in plants? Biological systems must respond rapidly to both external and internal stimuli to maintain homeostasis, and repair damage. To allow rapid responses, biology often relies on post-translational modifications of specific proteins to effect changes in activity, function, localization, or stability of pre-existing proteins. Several studies have shown that chloroplast and mitochondrial functions are direct target of stresses, from changes in the proteome, altering organellar abundance or modification of large-scale changes in the transcriptome.