Research Fellowship
Marine Biotechnology Department
Tel.: +39 081 5833211
Fax: +39 081 7641355
e-mail: camilla.borgonuovo(at)gmail.com
Research Interests
My research project focuses on signal transduction in diatoms by molecular approaches in the model organism Pseudo-nitzschia multistriata. Signal transduction is the basis of cell cross-talk. This process is well known in metazoa and plants, while little is known about phytoplankton. The cell cycle and sexual reproduction in Pseudo-nitzschia multistriata are known. When cells belonging to different maiting types (MT+ and MT-) meet, a chemical communication takes place. This triggers a cascade of recognition events that eventually lead to meiosis. Transcriptomics data show that during molecular cell communication mates show different gene expression patterns. Some of the differentially expressed genes are involved in the signal transduction mechanisms and therefore are object of my investigation. In order to decipher molecular mechanisms involved in cell communication and signal transduction I carry out perturbation of a series of candidate genes among those previousely identified. I am particularly interested in molecular and phenotypic changes in my model organism. The knowledge generated by these studies will pave the way to new applicatons in different research fields such as biotechnology, molecular evolution and marine ecology.
Journal Papers
G. Caruso, L. D. Gomez, F. Ferriello, A. Andolfi, C. Borgonuovo, A. Evidente, R. Simister, S. J. McQueen-Mason, D. Carputo, L. Frusciante and M. R. Ercolano (2016). Exploring tomato Solanum pennellii introgression lines for residual biomass and enzymatic digestibility traits. BMC Genetics DOI 10.1186/s12863-016-0362-9.
