My PhD project focus on the footprint of domestication in 3 species of Solanaceae namely the eggplant, pepper and tomato. My aim is to underly the genetic regions that are involved in the process of domestication. The project is particularly interesting when it comes to compare the domestication processes in the 3 different species of Solanaceae to establish their similarities and differences. From the genetic we can see the synonymous and non synonymous SNPs and calculate their implication in the phylogenetic and selection history of each species.

It is to mention though that many regulations affect transcription and this not only on a sequence variation manner. Therefore, the project involves the transcriptomic to see if the gene selection affects directly the gene expression. These RNAseq datasets are of high importance as they will reveal essential details about the gene regulation and its changes within a species: between domesticated and wild populations. Therefore, it will highlight the impact of domestication at a molecular level.

The metabolomics part of the project in the link to phenotypes, it will enlighten us on the different population phenotypes. Especially, here again when it comes to compare the domesticated to the wild populations. Indeed, it is already known and widely admitted that the domestication syndrome occurs on domesticated populations and leads to strong phenotypes. Thanks to a collaboration with the INRA of Bordeaux, we will complete our study and bring not only comparable elements to previous studies but advanced and unique methods of ‘omics to decipher genotype to phenotype imprinted mark of strong selection (namely in our case domestication).

EDUCATION

January 2016-            Part of the 5th promotion of the Agreenium’s International Research School EIR-A (PhD programme of excellence)

From Dec. 2015 :  PhD Student from the 1st December 2015 INRA Centre de recherche PACA (Avignon, France)

Detection of selection footprints induced by domestication in three Solanaceae species, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), eggplant (S. melongena) and pepper (Capsicum spp).

Funded by:

• National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).
• Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region (PACA).
  • Marie Curie Career Integration Grants (CIG) – Solanaceae evolution (SOLUTION).
  • Agropolis fondation – Agropolis Resource Centre for Crop Conservation, Adaptation and Diversity (ARCAD) project.

2012–2013      Second year of Master Research in Biology, ecology and environment, University Joseph Fourier of Grenoble.

Ecology and population genomic.

2011–2012      First year of Master degree in biology of plants and ecology, University of Montpellier 2

Genetic and genomic evolution, Advanced biostatistics, Evolution and molecular phylogeny.

2011    Degree of Biology. With specialties in botanic, genetic and ecology of plants, University Joseph Fourier of Grenoble.

Biostatistics, Statistics methods applied to biology.

2007    A Level scientific with mathematics and Spanish option. (Baccalauréat mention Bien), Lycée of Montbéliard

LANGUAGES

English / French / German  / Spanish       

EXPERIENCE

From Dec. 2015 :  PhD Student from the 1st December 2015 INRA Centre de recherche PACA (Avignon, France)

Aug. 2014 – Jul. 2015            : Research Assistant, Belkhadir Group Gregor Mendel Institute (Vienna, Austria)

Study of the natural variation of Arabidopsis thaliana in response to damage associated molecular pattern (DAMPs). High throughput phenotyping of 560 accessions and GWAS were perform with the 1001 genomes project data in order to dissect the DAMPs pathway.

Mar. – Jul. 2014 :       Technician, Tamaru Group Gregor Mendel Institute (Vienna)

 Histography on pollen of Arabidopsis thaliana. Some crossing and genotyping part of the paper ‘’The AAA-ATPase molecular chaperone Cdc48/p97 disassembles sumoylated centromeres, decondenses heterochromatin, and activates ribosomal RNA genes” Z.Merei et al., PNAS, 2014.

Sep. –  Jan. 2014 :      Technician, Nordborg Group Gregor Mendel Institute (Vienna)

 Help in phenotyping and genotyping via Next generation sequencing. And work on “The Spontaneous Mutation Rate in the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe” H. Farlow et al., Genetics, 2015.

Jan. – Aug. 2013 :      Intern with Angela Hancock, Nordborg Group Gregor Mendel Institute (Vienna)

 Internship in Population genetics and natural variation about the life history variation within a population of Arabidopsis thaliana from an extreme environment: the Cape Verde Islands.

Mar. – Jun. 2012 :      Intern with Joerg Wunder, Coupland Group Max Planck Institute (Cologne, Germany)

 Internship in Molecular Biology about the differences in the PEP1gene (Flowering gene) in Arabis alpina among the latitudinal gradient in different European populations.

TRAININGS

  EMBO Practical Course on Computational Molecular Evolution | 8 – 19 May 2016 | Heraklion, Greece

[http://events.embo.org/16-computational-evolution/]

  EIR-A PhD program meetings on Sustainable and Efficient Food Systems: Food, Water and Energy Nexus | 4 – 8 April 2016 | Montpellier, France

[http://www.iavff-agreenium.fr/en/]

   Genotoul Practical Course on Unix, Cluster, Aligning SGS reads & SNP calling and RNAseq data analysis | 14 – 18 Mars 2016 | Toulouse, France

[http://bioinfo.genotoul.fr/index.php?id=10/]   

Publications/chapitres/poster

 Mérai Z, Chumak N, García-Aguilar M, et al. The AAA-ATPase molecular chaperone Cdc48/p97 disassembles sumoylated centromeres, decondenses heterochromatin, and activates ribosomal RNA genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2014;111(45):16166-16171.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16166.short

  Farlow A, Long H, Arnoux S, et al. The spontaneous mutation rate in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Genetics. 2015;201(2):737-744. doi:10.1534/genetics.115.177329.

http://www.genetics.org/content/201/2/737.short