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K-State Today

Division of Communications and Marketing
Kansas State University
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January 30, 2024

Edgar Cahoon to present Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Seminar

Submitted by Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics

Edgar Cahoon, professor of biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will be the featured speaker for this week's Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Seminar. Cahoon will present "To Grow or Die: Sphingolipid Homeostatic Regulation" at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31, in 120 Ackert Hall.

Regulation of sphingolipid homeostasis in plants is critical for maintaining sufficient glycosphingolipid amounts to support growth while limiting accumulation of biosynthetic intermediates that trigger programmed cell death, until needed for microbial pathogen defense. Central to sphingolipid homeostatic regulation is the ORM protein, which functions as a negative regulator of serine palmitoyltransferase, or SPT, the first step in long-chain base synthesis. 

Cahoon will discuss how sphingolipid homeostasis is maintained and how this regulation can be overridden for pathogen defense, based on findings from Arabidopsis ORM mutants and a recent cryo-EM structure of the Arabidopsis SPT complex.