RosaRiveroLAB

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Our research interests are centered on the specific regulation of plant cells under stress combinations in horticultural plants. This interest stems from the observation that experiments with transgenic plants under single-stress conditions worked well in the lab but were unsuccessful under field conditions due to the specific plant response when two or more stresses are combined. I use tomato plants as a model organism because they provide an ideal platform for the questions I am interested in. 

Our research approach involves focusing on biologically important (and fundable) questions and addressing them using different tools, including molecular genetics, biochemistry, structural biology, physiology, chemistry, bioinformatics, omics, and systems biology. I aim to gain a deep understanding of biological processes by making predictions, generating models, and integrating data from different platforms, along with using different mutants and imaging tools to test my hypotheses. 

Our most recent findings regarding the response of plants to a combination of two different stresses have defined reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO), osmoprotectants, nitrogen metabolism, hormones, nutrient absorption, and phenolic metabolism as pathways with specific regulation in tomato plants, which results in significant publications in the field (>80). In recent years, I have also delved into the synchronization of plant metabolic pathways and the orchestration of genes and metabolites under abiotic stress combination, using tomato mutants (crispr) and overexpressor lines targeting key genes for ABA metabolism, NO signaling, Melatonin biosynthesis, among others.