Planning des séminaires

Invités IPN : 

Shinishiro SAWA (Kumamoto University, Japan) "Stomata-derived CLE9 peptide signal induces mesophyll air space formation."

Masa MIZUTANI (Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, Japan) "Solanoeclepins, Hatching Factors for Potato Cyst Nematodes: Isolation, Biosynthesis, Microbial-Interaction, and Future Prospects"

2025 ISA PhD Researchers:

Nicola Stievenard (MIB): Thermal acclimation and adaptation of Ophraella communa and their implications for the biological control of ragweed.

Pablo Carrion Hidalgo (IPO): The dual role of MLOs: from oomycete defence to powdery mildew susceptibility.

Lilian Urru (IRL) : Dynamics and functions of stress granules in Medicago truncatula under abiotic stress.

IPO : Edouard Evangelisti, Decoding Emergence: from tracks to rules.

The emergence of complexity is a fascinating feature of living matter. Oomycete plant pathogens, for instance, produce flagellated spores that explore their environment in search of nutrient sources, ultimately sensing the rhizosphere and reaching preferred infection sites in roots. While the behaviour of an individual zoospore may appear erratic, population-level exploration follows reproducible rules that can be investigated by combining high-throughput live imaging, quantitative trajectory analysis and agent-based modelling. In this seminar, I will show how experimental data can infer local motility rules directly, and that their repeated application is sufficient to reconstruct emergent exploration patterns in a simple environment. Building on this initial modelling effort, I will then present our ongoing attempt to extend this framework from data-driven modelling to AI-assisted model discovery. Teams of specialised AI agents, combining biological reasoning, mathematics, programming, and model criticism, are given experimental trajectories and challenged to formulate, implement, falsify and refine alternative behavioural models. Rather than using AI simply to analyse data or write code, we are exploring whether it can participate in the iterative scientific cycle itself: observation, hypothesis generation, modelling, prediction and criticism. This journey not only refines our previously developed models, but also opens the way to increasingly complex zoospore-environment interactions. Ultimately, such approaches could help us decipher how these pathogens navigate heterogeneous soil environments and interact with the rhizosphere.

IRL: Eva Ors, PhD researcher : Potential of rhizobial symbiosis as a biocontrol strategy against Ascochyta blight in pea.

Pea is a legume crop of major agroecological interest, but its cultivation remains limited by the Ascochyta blight disease complex. Symbiotic interactions with beneficial microorganisms offer a promising strategy for biocontrol by enhancing plant defenses against pathogens. In particular, inoculation with rhizobia can prime pea defenses and enhance systemic resistance. My study aims to (i) characterize the molecular mechanisms underlying symbiotic defense priming and (ii) identify rhizobial strains that enhance this trait while maintaining high nitrogen-fixation efficiency We investigated the effects of pea seed inoculation with rhizobia on Ascochyta blight development in mature plants of four pea genotypes. Symbiosis significantly reduced disease symptoms in all four genotypes compared with non-inoculated controls. Leaf transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses revealed a conserved response across genotypes, characterized by the pre-activation of several defense-related pathways before pathogen infection, rather than a response induced only after infection. We identified transcripts and metabolites associated with this symbiotic primed state. The selection of elite rhizobial strains combining enhanced pea resistance to Ascochyta blight with high nitrogen-fixation efficiency is currently underway.

PHYBAC : Soutenance de Thèse Jade Finkelstein "Titre à venir"

M2P2 : Yuan Gao soutenance de thèse "Titre à venir"

A010

A010

9h00

14h00