Ongoing Projects

SBP-stress-ome

The Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology will host the research project «Selenium Binding Protein: Exploring the interactome of the novel stress regulator in the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii - SBP-stress-ome» from November 2025 to November 2027. This project is implemented in the framework of H.F.R.I call “4th Call for H.F.R.I.’s Research Projects to Support Postdoctoral Researchers” (H.F.R.I. Project Number: 28950). Dr. Aikaterini Koletti is the Principal Investigator of the project. Selenium Binding Protein (SBP) is a highly conserved protein and was recently identified as a regulator of oxidative stress response in the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. CrSBP participates in a protein-protein interaction network, which also includes CrCEP2 (Koletti et al., 2022). The proposed study aims to investigate this interactome, focusing on CrCEP2. Initially, an in-silico analysis will study the phylogeny of CEP2 and its coevolution with SBP. Subsequently, the effects of H2O2-induced oxidative stress on a cep2 deletion mutant of C. reinhardtii will be evaluated. To elucidate the role of CEP2 during abiotic stress adaptations in-depth transcriptomic (total RNAseq) and untargeted metabolomic (GC-MS) analysis will be done. Reverse genetic approaches and crossings will lead to a double mutant, knockout for both SBP and CEP2 proteins. This strain, along with the cep2 and sbd1 mutants and the wild type, will be subjected to various abiotic stressors related to climate change, in order to gain insights into the environmental significance of SBP and its interactome. Overall, the ambition of the proposed study is to elucidate the roles of CEP2 and SBP in regulating abiotic stress responses.