Plant Physiology and Symbiosis

Welcome to the Luginbuehl Lab

The symbiosis between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the soil is one of the oldest and most widespread symbioses on Earth. While it provides significant nutritional benefits to plants, the symbiosis is also associated with a substantial carbon cost. Our goal is to identify the molecular mechanisms that allow plants to control carbon allocation to the fungus, and to understand how symbiotic, endogenous, and environmental factors affect the amount of carbon that is delivered to the fungus. To address these questions, we combine carbon tracing and (single-cell) transcriptomics approaches with targeted mutagenesis, microscopy imaging, and molecular biology techniques in the model species rice and Medicago truncatula.