Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: César Bernat-Silvestre

César Bernat-Silvestre, first author of p24 family proteins are involved in transport to the plasma membrane of GPI-anchored proteins in plants

Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, ERI BIOTECMED, University of Valencia

Education: BSc in Pharmacy at the University of Valencia, Spain; PhD in Biomedicine and Biotechnology at the University of Valencia, Spain

Non-scientific Interests: traveling, jogging, music

Brief bio: After completing my Bachelor in Pharmacy at the University of Valencia, I decided to do a PhD in the Biomedicine and Biotechnology Program at the same university, under the supervision of Professors Fernando Aniento and María Jesús Marcote. The main aim of my PhD project was to study the transport of Arabidopsis GPI-anchored proteins along the early secretory pathway, focusing on the role of GPI-anchor remodelling and proteins of the p24 family.

GPI-anchored proteins are an interesting family of proteins which are attached to the outer face of the plasma membrane by a GPI anchor, and have been shown to play important functions in plant growth and development. However, the molecular machinery involved in transport of these proteins to the plasma membrane in plants is essentially unknown. In this work, it is shown that p24 proteins play an important role in ER export and plasma membrane localization of GPI-anchored proteins by a direct interaction between both proteins, in which it is implicated the coil-coiled domain of p24 proteins.

In the future, we would like to further investigate the role of GPI anchor lipid remodelling and elucidate the transport pathway of GPI-anchored proteins from their biosynthesis in the ER to their localization to the plasma membrane.