Graduate student
Elizabeth McCormack

Calcium acts as a second messenger in plant cells in response to diverse biotic and abiotic stimuli. The task of interpreting complicated calcium signals falls in part to calmodulin and calmodulin-related proteins. Calmodulin has four calcium binding sites and experiences a calcium-induced conformational change that facilitates its interaction with downstream effector proteins. Different affinities for calcium and for downstream targets allow the potential for this family to interpret the messages encoded by calcium fluxes involved in many cellular processes. We would like to understand the role this family plays in decoding calcium signals. We are pursuing mutants in each of the genes and examining their expression patterns in response to developmental and environmental stimuli.