Christopher Bell (Universität Münster)
Christopher Bell's Master thesis was awarded with the Prize for the Best Plant Science Master Thesis, which was carried out at Universität Münster in the year 2023 with the title:
Resolving tissue-specific responses of subcellular redox and calcium dynamics in Arabidopsis thaliana in response to low oxygen stress
Christopher Bell developed an experimental setup that enables real-time imaging of the stress responses of plant tissues at the confocal microscope under targeted and controlled oxygen deprivation.
Low oxygen conditions represent a major abiotic stress for plants, for instance during flooding. The lack of molecular oxygen as final electron acceptor arrests the mitochondrial electron transport chain and, as a direct consequence, ATP production. In order to investigate the mechanisms of plant acclimation to hypoxic stress, Bell developed a setup at the confocal microscope to image calcium dynamics in real time and in vivo. Using this setup, he demonstrates that low oxygen conditions are perceived rapidly by the plant which is reflected in a distinct calcium response. Furthermore, he investigated the effects of low oxygen conditions on the cellular redox homeostasis (NADPH:NADP+, H2O2 and glutathione redox potential). Bell's results indicate that the reduction state of these three redox active systems depends largely on the central metabolism and vary depending on the environmental oxygen conditions. He anticipates that the novel imaging setup could be a strong new asset for the field of plant low oxygen research. His findings highlight that calcium signalling and metabolic flexibility are important factors in plants facing hypoxic stress and contribute to the understanding of plant biology under hypoxia.
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Christopher Bell conducted this work at the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology in the working group of Prof. Dr. Markus Schwarzländer.
