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One of Plant Energy Biology ’s recently graduated PhD students, Dr Kamel Hammani, has been honoured with a special commendation by UWA for his research into plant proteins.

Kamel’s research characterised six previously undiscovered pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins. PPR proteins are of great interest due to their ability to change the way that a gene is expressed.

The central dogma of molecular biology is that the genetic code – DNA – is transcribed into RNA (ribonucleic acid - essentially a copy of a gene), which is then translated into proteins. This is a process that is conserved across all living organisms.

In a process called RNA editing, PPR proteins bind to very specific sites on RNA and help alter the sequence. The proteins translated from these edited transcripts differ from those predicted from the sequence of the gene, effectively breaking the central dogma.

An understanding of how PPR proteins do this would open up considerable opportunities – for instance, the ability to selectively alter RNA from a disease-causing gene or virus before it is translated into protein could revolutionise the way we approach medicine.

PPR proteins are found in all animals and plants, but as plants contain many more of them, they make ideal models for study. Researchers at Plant Energy Biology are leading a global effort towards characterising the family of 450 PPR proteins in higher plants and Kamel’s results, which were published in the prestigious journal The Plant Cell* , have made a significant contribution to understanding how they recognise their RNA targets.

Kamel’s research was conducted as a joint PhD between the Université de Strasbourg, France, and The University of Western Australia. He will continue his work with a highly competitive European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) Post-doctoral Fellowship with Professor Alice Barkan at the University of Oregon. Plant Energy Biology wishes Kamel all the best with his research and looks forward to collaborating with him in the future.

*The paper is titled "A Study of New Arabidopsis Chloroplast RNA Editing Mutants Reveals General Features of Editing Factors and Their Target Sites".