Esther Carrera Bergua

Study of the role of plant hormones in the regulation of plant development. In particular, we investigate the regulation of gibberellin (GA) metabolism and its interaction with other hormones in developmental control. In our research, we primarily use tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., cultivar Micro-Tom) as an experimental system due to its small size, rapid growth, ease of transformation, and the availability of a collection of isogenic lines with hormonal mutations. We also use other experimental systems, such as Arabidopsis or other solanaceous species, to study the role of hormones in specific processes.

Currently, the group’s activity is focused on studying the role of gibberellins (GAs) in the control of ovule morphogenesis in tomato (Gómez MD et al., 2018) and the role of hormonal metabolism in microspore embryogenesis in Solanaceae. In collaboration with other research groups, we have studied the relationships between gibberellin metabolism and microRNAs involved in tomato fruit development (da Silva et al., 2017) and their interaction with carotenoid metabolism (Moreno et al., 2016).

We have also studied environment-induced changes in hormonal metabolism and their role in stress responses, particularly the role of GAs in responses to salinity (Kazachkova et al., 2016) and to drought or nutrient deficiency (Wild et al., 2016).

In many of these studies, we make use of the facilities of the Plant Hormone Analysis Laboratory at IBMCP (equipped with state-of-the-art LC-MS technology), which is under our supervision and management and also provides services to the Spanish scientific community.