Agrisera News

Meet with Agrisera at Chlamy 2025

Agrisera is in Münster, Germany this week for the 21st International Conference on the Cell and Molecular Biology of Chlamydomonas 2025 (August 24–29)! 🌿

Product Specialist Isabel Salén is available at our table. You are welcome to stop by to have a chat, receive free copies of Agrisera’s educational material and to enter our contest for an opportunity to win an antibody.

Chloroplast

Two conferences supported by Agrisera this week

During this week, Agrisera supported two conferences:

• Plant Membrane Biology EMBO Workshop, between 18th-22nd of August, in Copenhagen in Denmark
• 11th International Symposium on Inorganic Carbon Utilization by Aquatic Photosynthetic Organisms, between 20th-22nd of August, at the University of York in the United Kingdom

Agrisera supported the conferences with Agrisera Best Poster Prizes and free copies of Agrisera Educational Posters.

The Best Poster Prize on EMBO workshop was awarded to phd canditate Jianping Wang from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, CAS in China. For the poster entilted: "Cryo-EM structures of Arabidopsis CNGC1 and CNGC5 reveal gating and calcium selectivity mechanisms".

Conferences supported by Agrisera in August 2025

Interview with Prof. Wolfgang Schröder

Prof. Wolfgang Schröder

Dr. Wolfgang Schröder is Professor Emeritus at Umeå Plant Science Center. His research group investigates the structure and function of the photosynthetic protein complex PSII. Using cryo-electron microscopy as structural imaging method the research team aims to investigate how PSII undergoes conformational changes to protect against damage from intense light, as well as how plants can selectively disconnect parts of the photosystem to minimize energy loss and mitigate light-induced stress.

- Please tell us about yourself and your research/institution.

I made my PhD in Lund University at the department of biochemistry with Hans-Erik Åkerlund. After that I made a PostDr stay at CNRS outside Paris and a second PostDr in Berlin in the group of Gernot Renger. After that I returned to Sweden and became Docent at Stockholm University in the department headed by Bertil Andersson. In 2002 I moved to Umeå where I became professor. Since 2024 I am emeritus professor at Umeå Plant Science Center.

- What motivated you to get into plant science?

I was persuaded by Per-Åke Albertsson at biochemistry in Lund to make a bachelor exam work using two-phase extractions on plant material. After that I was hooked into plant biochemistry, as I realized the great advantage of plant-material which have few ethical or permission considerations.

- How have you used (Agrisera) antibodies in your research?

Throughout my carrier I have used antibodies from Agrisera, they have been crucial for identifying both new and old proteins. My first antibody produced was against a previous unknown low molecular protein in Photosystem II. This serum was the strongest sera I ever have obtained and I was happy that the protein was named PsbW.

- Any further comments?

Helpful and friendly personnel always prepared to help with troubleshooting.

Links

• Prof. Wolfgang Schröder
• Agrisera Antibodies to Photosynthetic Research

Antibodies for research validation of genetically modified plants

Agrisera provides two antibodies to EPSP synthase | 3-phosphoshikimate 1-carboxyvinyltransferase (chloroplastic), which is an enzyme inhibited by glyphosate.

Anti-EPSP synthase | 3-phosphoshikimate 1-carboxyvinyltransferase (chloroplastic), AS16 3119

Anti-EPSP synthase | 3-phosphoshikimate 1-carboxyvinyltransferase (chloroplastic, Arabidopsis thaliana), AS14 2782

These antibodies can be applied in:

Research validation of newly developed GM lines.
Protein characterization.
Comparative expression studies in different tissues or developmental stages.
Safety assessment in some early regulatory dossiers, Western blots have been used to show equivalence of expressed EPSPS protein in GM crops vs. recombinant production systems.

Chloroplast

Agrisera supported Canadian Society of Plant Biologists 2025 Annual Meeting

Agrisera supported Canadian Society of Plant Biologists 2025 Annual General Meeting (CSPB-SCBV 2025), held 9th-12th of August in Halifax, Canada

The three day long annual meeting brings together researchers from academic, government, and industry laboratories for communication and networking on all aspects of plant biology. The scientific program featured topics including plant resilience - interactions with individual, and combinations of abiotic and/or biotic stresses; coastal eco-physiology and the changing climate; and artificial intelligence in advancing plant biology and sustainable agriculture.

Agrisera Best Poster Award was awarded and participants could collect hard copies of Agrisera Educational Posters and Agrisera catalog.

Agrisera supports 2025 CSPB meeting

Interview with Dr. Pushan Bag

Dr. Pushan Bag

Dr. Pushan Bag received his PhD degree from Umea Plant Science Centre in Sweden, and is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford. He is a part of Prof. Paul Jarvis’s lab, in the field of chloroplast protein transport. His work aims to understand how proteins are imported into chloroplasts and how this process varies during different developmental stages, with the goal of improving crop performance.

- Please tell us about yourself and your research/institution.

My name is Pushan Bag, and I’m a Human Frontiers Science Program research fellow at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford. I work in Prof. Paul Jarvis’s lab, in the field of chloroplast protein transport. My current research focuses on how proteins are imported into chloroplasts, particularly how this process changes during different developmental stages. I'm especially interested in the structural biology of these transport machineries. The long-term goal is to engineer the protein transport machinery to influence plant development, which could have significant implications for improving crop performance.

Since protein transport into chloroplasts is heavily light-dependent, it’s clear that this process is directly or indirectly regulated by photosynthesis. During my PhD, I worked extensively on photosynthesis, which gave me a strong foundation in chloroplast energy metabolism. Now, I aim to integrate that expertise with my current work to explore how chloroplast energy status and redox metabolism influence—and are influenced by—organelle biogenesis and development. Ultimately, I hope to build a unified understanding of how chloroplasts function and adapt under different environmental and developmental conditions.

This field is also incredibly fascinating from an evolutionary perspective. Chloroplast protein transport is believed to have evolved from ancient bacterial toxin ejection systems. As life on Earth progressed from unicellular to multicellular organisms and eventually to higher plants, these primitive systems were repurposed—from ejecting toxins to importing proteins. One hypothesis is that, following the endosymbiotic origin of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria, most of the endosymbiont’s genes were transferred to the host nucleus, which then forced the evolution of a protein import system from what was originally an ejection system. But we don’t yet know exactly how this transition occurred—or if it happened in that way at all.

To shed light on this question, I’m examining the structure of these protein transporters across organisms throughout the evolutionary tree. By doing so, I hope to understand how this transformation took place. This research could also provide insights into mitochondrial evolution, as both chloroplasts and mitochondria originated via endosymbiosis. Understanding one may help us better understand the other.

- What motivated you to get into plant science?

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about plant science early in my academic journey. During my bachelor’s studies, I focused on microbiology, physics, and chemistry. I still remember the first time I saw the Z-scheme of photosynthesis in a textbook—I thought it looked too complicated and skipped that chapter altogether!

Later, I pursued a Master’s in Molecular Microbiology, which wasn’t plant-focused either, although it was offered by the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad. My entry into plant biology was more of a happy accident. Due to lower first-semester grades, I had limited options for my master’s thesis lab and ended up in a plant biology lab that no one else from my program had chosen. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise: I had a great experience and even got a good paper out of it. That was the moment I got properly introduced to plant science—and since then, it's been green all the way!

After my Master’s, I joined Prof. Rajagopal’s lab, where I first started working with chloroplasts and photosynthesis. I began to wonder: when we treat plants in the lab and observe how they respond, how does that compare to how they naturally behave in the wild? That curiosity led me to do my PhD with Prof. Stefan Jansson in Umeå, working on conifers in natural and extreme conditions, which felt like a very natural progression. From there, moving into protein transport with Prof. Jarvis and thinking about how we can engineer plants for agriculture has been a very fulfilling path.

And looking back on it all, I’m reminded of that quote from Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” At the time of choosing my Master’s lab, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing—just taking the only open opportunity. And now here I am, giving an interview to Agrisera about plant protein antibodies. That’s the beauty of the journey.

- How have you used (Agrisera) antibodies in your research?

The first time I used Agrisera antibodies was in Prof. Rajagopal’s lab—probably for a western blot of Photosystem II subunit A (PsbA). Before that, I hadn’t even heard of Agrisera. But once you get into photosynthesis research, you quickly realize how essential Agrisera is, especially given their extensive collection of antibodies targeting photosynthetic proteins.

During my PhD in Umeå, I got to work closely with Agrisera for multiple reasons. First, they were part of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie Horizon 2020 EU project. Second, in Prof. Jansson’s lab, many light-harvesting complex antibodies were co-developed with Agrisera. I also had a particularly rewarding experience working with spruce and pine, which required antibody optimization. Agrisera was extremely helpful and responsive throughout that process. We even developed spruce-specific Lhcb1 antibodies in collaboration with them, and the whole process was smooth and enriching.

Now that I’m in the UK, I’m still planning to design more antibodies with Agrisera. Beyond their research tools, I also want to highlight the educational posters and illustrations they create. Those were incredibly helpful during my PhD and even contributed to how I structured my thesis. It really shows how a company can go beyond commercial products to play an educational and academic role in the scientific community.

- Any further comments?

I truly value the role of well-characterized molecular tools in advancing plant science, and Agrisera has been a key part of that journey for me. As the field moves toward more integrative and synthetic approaches—combining insights from photosynthesis, organelle biology, and systems biology—having reliable, specific, and customizable reagents is more critical than ever. I’m particularly excited about the potential to unravel how chloroplast energy status regulates development and function, and how that understanding can be applied to improve crop productivity in a changing world.

Links

• Dr. Pushan Bag
• Agrisera Photosynthesis Antibodies

Latest

Agrisera's 40 years celebration
2025-09-01 Meet with Agrisera at Chlamy 2025
2025-08-25 Two conferences supported by Agrisera this week
2025-08-22 Interview with Prof. Wolfgang Schröder
2025-08-21 Antibodies for research validation of genetically modified plants
2025-08-18 Agrisera supported Canadian Society of Plant Biologists 2025 Annual Meeting
2025-08-13 Interview with Dr. Pushan Bag
2025-08-11 Light-induced structural changes in thylakoid membranes, revisited in the recent publication
2025-07-29 Agrisera supported 20th Congress on Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
2025-07-25 Interview with Prof. Ru Zhang
2025-07-23

Agrisera News

Meet with Agrisera at Chlamy 2025

Two conferences supported by Agrisera this week

Interview with Prof. Wolfgang Schröder

Prof. Wolfgang Schröder

Antibodies for research validation of genetically modified plants

Agrisera supported Canadian Society of Plant Biologists 2025 Annual Meeting

Interview with Dr. Pushan Bag

Dr. Pushan Bag

Agrisera News

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