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Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as model organism

Currently, a major part of our research is conducted with the well-established unicellular model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, since work with a uniformly growing cell culture has several advantages for the global analysis of processes such as cellular reprogramming on the level of protein synthesis. However, an important aim of our current research is the identification of either evolutionary conserved processes or fundamental differences between single-celled aquatic organisms and more complex land plants, allowing to transfer knowledge from model organism to other ecological or agricultural relevant species. Consequently, all our current projects involve interspecies comparisons both on the level of global processes (such as protein synthesis) or functional studies involving individual factors (e.g. the chloroplast chaperone Trigger Factor).