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Since 2004 Silvia Mazzuca has been interested in the adaptation strategies of marine plants to the completely submerged lifestyle. The application of molecular methodologies has allowed to obtain optimized protocols for the purification of proteins and nucleic acids from various tissues of these plants. From this, pioneering studies have helped to define stress responses, resilience and acclimation against the main risk factors that threaten marine plants and their potential for survival under global climate change. Many mRNAseq projects done under several conditions and the complete genome structure of the seagrass Zostera marina gave enough resources to go deep inside on seagrass evolution strategies with special attention on the metabolisms that drove the adoption/adaption to the sea environment. Adaptation to depth, light stress and salt stress have been investigated in two endemic species of the Mediterranean basin, Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa, by combining morpho-functional analyses, gene expression and differentially accumulated proteins.   

Currently her research aims on whether Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa might be considered as “model systems” to investigate the seagrasses adaptation to water acification due to atmospheric CO₂ increasing and how much and how deep the proteomic specialty might elucidate the behaviour of natural populations growing in extreme acidified environments where the scenario of a future sea is going on stage.

Silvia Mazzuca  is responsible of the Laboratory of Plant Biology and Proteomics  (Lab.Bio.Pro.Ve) at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, Università della Calabria, Italy.

Direct link to her website (in construction) >>>