Bo Larsen

 

The aim of my PhD at the DynaMo Center of Excellence is to discover novel glucosinolate transporter proteins. Looking at the bigger picture, we aim at identifying the full glucosinolate transport complement. The transporters we look for may either be importers or exporter as many intra- and extracellular transport barriers exist for glucosinolates in the plant. We are therefore developing and expanding a technology platform for assigning substrate specificity and directionality to transporters. This effort involves construction of a comprehensive membrane transporter protein library. In this work, molecular techniques, including cloning (USER and Gateway cloning) and screening for transporter function, are scaled base on high-throughput principles. Screening for transporters activity is performed by expressing transporter proteins in Xenopus Leavis oocytes, exposing them to various glucosinolates and analyzing their glucosinolate content by LCMS.

In addition to the main project of my PhD, I am developing non-invasive molecular tools for live imaging of glucosinolates in planta. Our main effort is on developing a genetically encoded FRET-based glucosinolate nanosensors. As an alternative approach we investigate the use of glucosinolate binding RNA aptamers and their use as conformational actuators.