Name:
Miguel López-Gómez
Job Title:
Professor
Email:
Phone Number:
+34 958241310
Biography:
Education/Training
Studies of Biology. 2001. University of Granada, Spain.
Pre-graduate fellowship. 2000/2001. Biochemistry Department, University of Granada, Spain.
Diploma (MSc). 2005. Biología Agraria y Acuicultura. University of Granada, Spain.
PhD Thesis. 2007. University of Granada, Spain. Supervised by Dra. Carmen Lluch Plá. Title: Nodular carbon metabolism in the symbiosis Medicago truncatula-Sinorhizobium meliloti, Lotus japonicus-Mesorhizobium loti under salt stress: role of trehalose.
Predoctoral research
My research trajectory has been focused in the symbiotic interaction between legumes and soil bacteria known as rhizobia. In this interaction, the bacteria reduce atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia which is supplied to the plant that provide the appropriate conditions allowing this process to takes place. My Master Thesis and PhD Thesis projects consisted in the study of the adaptation to salt stress conditions of the nitrogen fixation process. Those studies were approached from two different perspectives:
a) the effects of salinity on the cellular osmotic potential by determining the biochemical and physiological mechanisms involved in salt adaptation such as accumulation of compatible osmolytes, b) the nutrient balance by the analysis of the effect of high salinity in the nutrient distribution in the plant. The negative effect of salt stress was also determined in other plant major processes such as cell respiration, photosynthetic activity and nitrogen and carbon metabolism.
Postdoctoral research
During my postdoctoral research period I worked in a two years project funded by the Spanish Education Ministry and the Swiss National Foundation in the Botanical Institute of the University of Basel (Switzerland). The aim of this project was to determine the capacity of legumes to discriminate between symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms, for this purpose I studied the immune responses in roots of legumes upon treatment with different elicitors, and how do they affect the establishment of nitrogen fixation symbiosis in order to determine a possible cross-talk between the signalling pathways involved in the symbiosis and innate immunity. The aim of my current research activity is to study the involvement of plant growth regulators such as polyamines and brassinosteroids in root nodule organogenesis and functioning under stress conditions in order to generate new tools to improve the tolerance to salt stress conditions of legume crops.
Research Areas:
- Rhizobium-legume symbiosis
- Biological nitrogen fixation
- Salinity stress
- Plant growth regulation
Current N-related Projects:
- Rhizobium-legume symbiosis: biological nitrogen fixation
- Nodule carbon and nitrogen metabolism.
- Markers of oxidative stress in response to salinity in the rhizobium-legume symbiosis.
- Symbiosis versus pathogenesis during the initial stages of the symbiosis establishment.
- Use of the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis for the recovery of degraded or contaminated soils.
Bibliography:
N.A. Tejera*, C. Iribarne, M. López, J. Herrera-Cervera y C. Lluch. Physiological implications of trehalase from Phaseolus vulgaris root nodules: partial purification and
characterization. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 43, 355-361, 2005.
JA Herrera Cervera; Miguel Lopez Gomez; Noel A Tejera García; Carmen Lluch. Partial cloning and expression analysis under salt stress of MTTRE1, a Medicago truncatula gene coding
for trehalase. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A-Molecular & Integrative Physiology. 141, 347 – 348. 2005.
J.G. Streeter*, M. L. Gómez. Three enzymes for trehalose synthesis in Bradyrhizobium cultured bacteria and bacteroids from soybean nodules Applied and Environmental Microbiology 72, 4250-4255, 2006.
M. López, J.A. Herrera-Cervera, C. Lluch and N.A. Tejera* Trehalose metabolism in root nodules of the model legume Lotus japonicus in response to salt stress Physiologia Plantarum 128 (4), 701–709, 2006
Miguel López*, José A. Herrera-Cervera, Carmen Iribarne, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Lluch. Growth and nitrogen fixation in Lotus japonicus and Medicago truncatula under NaCl: Nodule carbon metabolism Journal of Plant Physiology 165, 641-650, 2008.
Miguel López*, Carmen Lluch. Nitrogen fixation is synchronized with carbon metabolism in Lotus japonicus and Medicago truncatula nodules under salt stress Journal of Plant Interactions 3 (3), 137-144, 2008.
Miguel López*, Noel A. Tejera and Carmen Lluch. Differential strategies of the Model Legumes Lotus japonicus and Medicago truncatula in the Adaptation to Salt Stress: Photosynthetic and Nutritional Responses American Journal of Plant Physiology 3 (3), 121-130, 2008.
Miguel López*, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Iribarne, Carmen Lluch and José A. Herrera-Cervera. Trehalose and trehalase in root nodules of Medicago truncatula and Phaseolus vulgaris in response to salt stress Physiologia Plantarum 134, 575-582, 2008.
Miguel López*, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Lluch. Validamycin A improves the response to salt stress of Medicago truncatula by inducing trehalose accumulation in the root nodules Journal of Plant Physiology 166, 1218-1222, 2009.
Jurgen Prell, Alexandre Bourdès, Ramakrishnan Karunakaran, Miguel Lopez-Gomez, Philip Poole* Pathway of γ-aminobutyrate (GABA) metabolism in Rhizobium leguminosarum 3841 and its role in symbiosis Journal of Bacteriology 191 (7), 2177-2186, 2009.
Geraldine Mulley, Miguel Lopez-Gomez, Ye Zhang, Jason Terpolilli, Jurgen Prell, Turlough Finan and Philip Poole* Pyruvate is formed by two pathways in pea bacteroids with different efficiencies for nitrogen fixation Journal of Bacteriology. 192 (19), 4944-4953, 2010.
Miguel Lopez-Gomez*, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Iribarne, Jose A. Herrera-Cervera and Carmen Lluch. Different strategies for salt tolerance in determined and Indeterminate nodules of Lotus japonicus and Medicago truncatula Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science. 58 (9), 1061-1073, 2012.
Miguel Lopez-Gomez*, Niels Sandal, Jens Stougaard and Thomas Boller. Interplay of flg22-induced defence responses and nodulation in Lotus japonicus Journal of Experimental Botany. 63 (1), 393-401, 2012.
Francisco Palma, Miguel Lopez Gomez*, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Lluch. Salicylic acid improves the salinity tolerance of Medicago sativa in symbiosis with Sinorhizobium meliloti by preventing nitrogen fixation inhibition. Plant Science. 208, 75–82, 2013.
Miguel López Gómez*, Javier Hidalgo Castellanos, Carmen Iribarne, Carmen Lluch. Proline accumulation has prevalence over polyamines in nodules in nodules of Medicago sativa in symbiosis with Sinorhizobium meliloti during the initial response to salinity. Plant and Soil. 374, 149-159, 2014.
Francisco Palma, Miguel López Gómez*, Noel A. Tejera, Carmen Lluch. Involvement of abscisic acid in the response of Medicago sativa plants in symbiosis with Sinorhizobium meliloti to salinity. Plant Science 223, 16-24, 2014.
Miguel López-Gómez*, Libertad Cobos-Porras, Javier Hidalgo-Castellanos, Carmen Lluch. Occurrence of polyamines in root nodules of Phaseolus vulgaris in symbiosis with Rhizobium tropici in response to salt stress. Phytochemistry 107, 32-41, 2014.
Fatima Berenice Salazar-Badillo, Diana Sanchez-Rangel, Alicia Becerra-Flora, Miguel Lopez-Gomez, Fernanda Nieto-Jacobo, Artemio Mendoza-Mendoza,Juan Francisco Jimenez-Bremont*. Arabidopsis thaliana polyamine content is modified by the interaction with different Trichoderma species. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 95, 45-56, 2015.
Miguel López-Gómez*, Libertad Cobos-Porras, Jürgen Prell, Carmen Lluch. Homospermidine synthase contributes to salt tolerance in free living Rhizobium tropici and in its symbiotic interaction with Phaseolus vulgaris. Plant and Soil 404(1): 413-425, 2016.
Miguel López-Gómez, Javier Hidalgo-Castellanos, Carmen Lluch, José A. Herrera-Cervera. 24-epibrassinolide ameliorates salt stress effects in the symbiosis Medicago truncatula-Sinorhizobium meliloti and regulates the nodulation in cross-talk with polyamines. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 108: 212-221, 2016.
Duque AS*, López-Gómez M, Kráčmarová J, Gomes CN, Araújo SS, Lluch C, Fevereiro P. Physiological responses toward water deficit of M. truncatula T2 plants expressing the oat Adc (arginine decarboxylase) gene under the control of CaMV 35S. Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture DOI 10.1007/s11240-016-1107-1, 2016.
Miguel López-Gómez, Javier Hidalgo-Castellanos, J. Rubén Muñoz-Sánchez, Agustín J. Marín-Peña, Carmen Lluch, José A. Herrera-Cervera. Polyamines contribute to salinity tolerance in the symbiosis Medicago truncatula-Sinorhizobium meliloti by preventing oxidative damage. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2017.04.024), 2017.
Book chapters:
Miguel López and Carmen Lluch. “Trehalose in plant-microorganism symbiotic interactions” Book title: Biochemical responses of plants to invaders Editors: M.E. Legaz, C.V. Córdoba Edited by Research Signpost, Kerala, India. 2008 ISBN 978-81-308-0306-7.
Miguel López y Carmen Lluch. “Solutos compatibles nitrogenados vs. carbonados en la adaptación al estrés salino de Lotus japonicus en simbiosis con Mesorhizobium loti” Book title: Avances en el metabolismo del nitrógeno. De la genómica y la proteómica a las aplicaciones agronómicas, industriales y medioambientales Editors: Maria José Bonete, Rosa Mª Martinez Espinosa Edited by Editorial Club Universitario, pg 311-318, 2009 ISBN 978-84-8454-8065.
Miguel López Gómez; Francisco Palma Martín; Carmen Lluch Plá. Strategies of Salt Tolerance in the Rhizobia-Legume Symbiosis. Book title: Beneficial Plant-microbial Interactions: Ecology and Applications. Editors: Belén Rodelas, Jesús González Edited by CRC Press, 2013. ISBN 978-14-665-8717-5