Acquisition of energy and regulation of its use by different metabolic pathways is the fundamental basis for life on earth. In all organisms energy usage is modulated by central and conserved signal transduction pathways regulating both the rate of energy usage, storage and capture. When a plant or other eukaryotic organism faces a situation with limited energy availability then storage reserves are mobilized and energy-consuming activities (including growth) are inhibited. The ability to restrict energy usage is central for survival. In the plant model organism A. thaliana, bZIP transcription factors and the  SnRK1 kinase are key components in the network that regulates and mediates this reprogramming.

Within the MERIT consortium a variety of omics techniques (metabolomics, transcriptomics, ChIPSeq) are applied to these key components. The bioinformatic challenge is twofold. Firstly to improve our prediction and understanding of the biological role of bZIP proteins by integrative bioinformatic analysis of existing plant C/S1 bZIP protein sequences, currently publicly available omics data and novel data that will be generated within the MERIT consortium. Secondly to obtain an evolutionary systems-biology description of how the function of bZIP paralogs has changed over evolutionary time.