General
The Universidad de Lleida (UdL) is a Spanish University within the Catalan tertiary education system that combines excellent research in agricultural sciences and biomedicine. It is engaged in high-level teaching, research, extension, dissemination and technology transfer. The UdL offers a highly-specialised biotechnology degree program. The expertise of the School of Agronomy in particular encompasses plant molecular biology, plant physiology and biochemistry, plant genetics and crop production. The UdL is only one of a handful of Spanish research organisations engaged in field trials and the evaluation of transgenic crops, including maize and rice. We have conducted such trials successfully for the past decade. UdL will use its unique combinatorial transformation system to engineer rice plants with multiple genes as described elsewhere in the proposal.
Role in Photoboost
The UdL will, coordinate all rice transformation activities in the project (working in close cooperation with partners ITQB and IRRI), carry out rice greenhouse and field trials in Spain, and also contribute towards the objectives of other work packages as described elsewhere in the proposal.
Contact
Paul Cristou
paul.christou@udl.cat
Selected publications
Pérez L, Soto E, Farré G, Juanos J, Villorbina G, Bassie L, Medina V, Serrato AJ, Sahrawy M, Rojas JA, Romagosa I, Muñoz P, Zhu C, Christou P (2019) CRISPR/Cas9 mutations in the rice Waxy/GBSSI gene induce allele-specific and zygosity-dependent feedback effects on endosperm starch biosynthesis. Plant Cell Reports 8, 417–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-019-02388-z
Zhu C, Bortesi L, Baysal C, Twyman RM, Fischer R, Capell T, Schillberg S, Christou P (2017) Characteristics of genome editing mutations in cereal crops. Trends in Plant Science 22, 38–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2016.08.009
Bai C, Capell T, Berman J, Medina V, Sandmann G, Christou P, Zhu C (2016) Bottlenecks in carotenoid biosynthesis and accumulation in rice endosperm are influenced by the precursor–product balance. Plant Biotechnology Journal 14, 195–205. http://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.12373
Naqvi S, Farré G, Sanahuja G, Capell T, Zhu C, Christou P (2010) When more is better: multigene engineering in plants. Trends in Plant Science 15, 48–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2009.09.010
Zhu C, Naqvi S, Breitenbach J, Sandmann G, Christou P, Capell T (2008) Combinatorial genetic transformation generates a library of metabolic phenotypes for the carotenoid pathway in maize. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105, 18232–18237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2009.09.010