Molecular interaction networks in plants

These images correspond to my design thesis project, which was developed within Dr. Rodrigo Gutierrez Laboratory from the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department of the Pontificia Universidad Católica. The Laboratory was searching to develop a software for data visualization.

The purpose of the project was the design of a display model that could allow the observation of molecular interactions taking place inside a plant – Arabidopsis Thaliana – in response to a certain external stimulus, e.g. augmenting levels of Nitrogen in the soil. The data is composed of a network of agents and interactions. Agents are different kinds of molecules; metabolites, genes, enzymes ,mRNA- Interactions can be understood as the agent’s capacity to modify its neighbor agents. Interactions depend on the agent’s properties. Another type of information aggregated was the location of molecules inside cellular compartments.

A second version of this project extended the view of molecular interactions from the cellular level to the tissue level and then to plant parts (roots, stem, flowers, etc.).

Teacher supervisors: Rodrigo Gutiérrez, José Miguel Tagle, Pablo Hermansen
Biologist Research: Felipe Aceituno and Viviana Araus
3d images: Max Rosenthal
Funded by: Research financed by Fondecyt* nº 1060457 and Millennium Nucleus for Plant Functional Genomics