María del Águila Ruiz Sola

ORCID: 0000-0002-2281-6700

Group: TOR signaling and autophagy in microalgae

Position: Profesora Contratada Doctora (US)

Contact:

Laboratory: LE111

Office: D101

Phone number: 954139176 ext. 446061

Email: ;

Formation

Grade in Chemistry, University of Sevilla, 2007

MSc in Biotechnology, University of Barcelona, 2008

PhD in Biotechnology, University of Barcelona-CRAG, 2014

Postdoctoral stay, IMPB (ETH-Zurich), Switzerland, 2015-2016

Postdoctoral stay, LPCV (CNRS-CEA-UGA-INRA), Grenoble, France, 2016-2018

Beatriu de Pinós fellow, CRAG (CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB), Barcelona, 2019-2020

Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación fellow, IBVF-US, Sevilla, 2020-2023

Current project as IP: PAIDI 2021 Junta de Andalucía (PROYEXCEL_00587)

Research Interests

My research focuses on understanding how plants and algae can perceive and adapt to changes in light conditions in their natural environment. Specifically, I study how light signals are integrated to regulate photosynthetic growth and development. I follow transcriptomics, biochemistry, cell biology, and physiology approaches in two plant model systems: the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, an excellent pair for comparative biology studies. My specific objectives are:

To study the molecular mechanisms responsible for chloroplast biogenesis.
To investigate the regulatory role of stress granules in light-regulated growth and development.

Publications

Ruiz-Sola, MA, Flori S, Yuan, Y, Villain, G, Sanz-Luque, E, Redekop, P, Tokutsu, R, Kueken, A, Tsichla, A, Kepesidis, G, Allorent, G, Arend, M, Iacono, F, Finazzi, G, Hippler, M, Nikoloski, Z, Minagawa, J, Grossman, AR, Petroutsos, D. (2023) Light-independent regulation of algal photoprotection by CO₂ availability. Nat Commun 14, 1977.

Arend, M, Yuan Y, Ruiz-Sola, MA, Omranian, N, Nikoloski, Z, Petroutsos D (2023) Widening the landscape of transcriptional regulation of green algal photoprotection. Nat Commun 14, 2687.

Gommers, CMM, Ruiz-Sola, MA, Ayats, A, Pereira, L, Pujol, M, Monte, E. (2021) GENOMES UNCOUPLED1-independent retrograde signaling targets the ethylene pathway to repress photomorphogenesis. Plant physiology 185, 67–76.

Duan, L, Ruiz-Sola, MA, Couso, A, Veciana, N, Monte, E. (2020) Red and blue light differentially impact retrograde signalling and photoprotection in rice. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 375, 20190402.

Ruiz‐Sola, MA, Petroutsos, D. (2018) A toolkit for the characterization of the photoprotective capacity of green algae. Methods in Molecular Biology 1829, 315-323.