Centre of Plant Structural & Functional Genomics

Our research unveils the organization of genetic information of plants and explains how it controls plant growth and development. Our teams collaborate with colleagues across the world. We have participated in the ambitious projects that delivered genome sequences of important crops including barley and wheat.

News

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New publication: Integrative morpho-physiological and . . .
Annotation:  Climate change intensifies stresses such as drought and heat, threatening crop yields, while elevated CO₂ can improve photosynthesis and water-use efficiency (WUE). We tested drought (D), elevated temperature (eT) and elevated CO₂ (eC) alone, in all pairwise combinations and together (eC+eT+D). The eT+D combination caused the largest declines in growth and yield, whereas eC consistently increased WUE and partially mitigated stress . . .
New publication: Restoring cytonuclear harmony . . .
Annotation:  Plants rely on finely tuned coordination among nuclear, mitochondrial, and chloroplast genomes to assemble essential multisubunit cytonuclear complexes. Genome merging and duplication can disrupt this co-evolution and the stoichiometric balances. We conducted a multidisciplinary analysis on the quantification and qualification of organelles, copy number of organelle DNAs, and gene expression changes associated with auto- and . . .
New publication: The Silene latifolia genome and its . . .
Annotation: The genome of a dioecious plant Silene latifolia comprises a giant ~550-megabase Y chromosome, which has remained unsequenced so far. Using a long- and short-read hybrid approach, a high-quality male genome was obtained. Comparative analysis of the sex chromosomes with their homologs in outgroups revealed that the Y is highly rearranged and degenerated. Recombination suppression between X and Y triggered a massive accumulation of repeats . . .

Events

Seminar of Hua Jiang
Date:
20.1.2026 at 10 a.m.
Place:
ÚEB, Šlechtitelů 31, Olomouc
Theme: Securing plant reproduction under climate change  
Seminar of Petr Stiblík
Date:
18.11.2025 at 1p.m.
Place:
ÚEB, Šlechtitelů 31, Olomouc
Theme: From gels to nanopores – what we put nucleic acids through  
Seminar of Jiří Macas
Date:
23.10.2025 at 1 p.m.
Place:
ÚEB, Šlechtitelů 31, Olomouc
Theme: The evolutionary interplay between centromeres and distribution of repeats in plant genomes
Seminar of Kim Nakian
Date:
26.9.2025 at 10:00
Place:
ÚEB, Šlechtitelů 31, Olomouc
Theme: Introduction to KIST Gangneung, and Phytobiome valorization for functional plants

Our Activities

The Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech . . .
The Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics is one of the organizational units of the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The Institute of was founded in 1962. Today, it has 14 laboratories located in Prague and Olomouc. The institute conducts fundamental research in plant genetics, physiology, phytopathology and biotechnology. The research in plant genetics focuses on plant genome organization, evolution and . . .
The Application Laboratory for Agricultural Research
The Application Laboratory for Agricultural Research is the first laboratory at the Czech Academy of Sciences to link scientists with breeders and farmers. It was established under the Food for Future Program of the Strategy AV21 in February 2017 and is located at the Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics of the Institute of Experimental Botany in Olomouc. The main objective of the Laboratory is to facilitate the . . .
Sustainable food production and consumption of . . .
The Strategy of the Czech Academy of Sciences responds to current social challenges through a sophisticated formulation of research programmes, based on cooperation of scientific fields and institutions. The research programmes of the CAS are open to partners from universities, corporations, and institutions of regional administration, as well as foreign research groups and organisations. The research programmes are proposed and formulated in discussion . . .