Louet Clémentine, PhD student

IAM Department, UMR 1136 – University of Lorraine

“Ecology of Forest Pathogenic Fungi” team

INRA Centre Grand-Est Nancy F-54280 Champenoux, France

E-mail: clementine.louet@inra.fr

Research:

I am particularly interested in a thorough understanding of interactions between pathogens/parasites and their hosts. My main motivation is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying these interactions.

In December 2018, I was recruited as PhD student to work on the poplar rust fungus, Melampsora larici-populina (Mlp), a biotroph pathogen able to develop and feed on trees.

In order to limit damages by this fungal pathogen on French poplar plantations, several qualitative resistances have been deployed. Nevertheless, each has been overcome by Mlp due to the emergence of new virulence factors. In 1994, the most damaging resistance breakdown occurred when the resistance R7 was overcome and led to the invasion of France by Mlp isolates carrier of virulence 7 (Vir7).  Through a genome-wide association study (GWAS), the team recently identified a locus in the genome of Mlp, which could correspond to the avirulence locus Avr7, whose mutation is responsible for R7 resistance breakdown in poplar.

In this context, my PhD project aims to characterize evolutionarily and functionally this avirulence locus. My objectives are to (i) a comparative genomics approach in order to list the polymorphisms in this region; (ii) a transcriptomic approach to clarify the expression of the avirulence gene and the co-expressed genes; (iii) a functional genomic approach to attempt to express the corresponding protein in a heterologous system and to search for its interactant in plant cells.

Bio:

2017 – 2018 – 6-month and 2-month internships: Functional analysis of salivary effectors in the apple-tree leaf-miner Phyllonorycter sp., IRBI Tours – France (UMR CNRS 7261)

2018 – MSc Behavioural ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, University of Tours (Tours, France)

2016 – BSc Ecosystems and Organisms Biology, University of Orléans (Orléans, France)