MECHANISMS of INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THE FUNGUS PHANEROCHAETE CHRYSOSPORIUM AND BACTERIA DURING WOOD DETOXICATION
2021-2023- 24 months
Principal Investigator : Aurélie DEVEAU
email : aurelie.deveau@inrae.fr
Co-PIs : Mélanie Morel-Rouhier (IAM-Nancy), Arnaud Besserer (LERMAB-Epinal)
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Context
Each year in France the building industry generates around 1,4 Mt of treated wood waste. Currently no recycling of this biomass is possible due to the toxicity of the compounds used for preservation, mainly alkaline copper quaternary and copper azole formulations. The WOOODWASTE project (funded by ANR) aims at identifying and developing a strategy using microorganisms and/or microbial enzymes as biocatalysts to remove toxic preservative compounds from wood waste in order to both (i) limit the impact of these molecules on environment and human health, and (ii) use these tons of wastes as new resource for industrial valorization of wood polymer and copper extraction. We have created a consortium of microorganisms (fungi and bacteria) that have the ability to detoxify wood treated with copper/azole in laboratory conditions within few days. The consortium is made of the white rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium and 10 bacterial strains isolated from the mycosphere of the fungus. We hypothesize that bacterial siderophores and oxalate metabolism could be involved in the cooperative process between the fungus and bacteria.
Objectives & approaches
The post-doctoral project aims to identify the mechanisms of the cooperation between the microorganisms leading to the detoxification of wood. More specifically, the post-doctoral fellow will analyse the involvement of microbial siderophores and oxalate metabolism in the interaction. To do so, genome mining, molecular approaches, biotests, chemical analyses and microscopy (confocal and SEM) will be combined.
RESEARCH TEAM & EQUIPMENTS
The post-doctoral fellow will integrate the Ecogenomic team of Tree microbe Interaction lab (UMR1136 IAM INRAE/Université de Lorraine). His research will be based at the INRAE Nancy Grand Est Centre but he will regularly interact with collaborators at the University of Lorraine (Nancy) and of LERMAB lab (Epinal). The post-doctoral fellow will be mentored by Dr. A. Deveau who specialized in the analysis of fungal-bacterial interactions.
Equipments available on sites : Quantitative PCR & PCR machine, bioanalyser, Sanger sequencer, Laser scanning microscope, scanning electron microscope, HPLC, ICQ, bioinformatic cluster.
COLLABORATIONS
The post-doctoral fellow will closely collaborate with a PhD student in charge of analysing the effect of the bacterial consortium on fungal behaviour. He will regularly interact Pis of the WOODWASTE project : Pr. Mélanie Morel-Rouhier (specialist of detox metabolism and stress response in fungi) and Dr. Arnaud Besserer (specialist of wood degradation & microscopy).
EXPECTED PROFILE OF THE CANDIDATES
Candidates will have received a PhD in microbiology or molecular biology. They will be familiar with the biology of fungi and bacteria, know techniques to cultivate aspetically microorganisms, to extract RNA and DNA, analyse gene expression by quantitative PCR. Applied knowledge in genome mining, metabolome analyses and/or targeted mutagenesis is a plus.
The candidate must be able to speak English fluently and write reports and publications in English.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONS
Deadline for candidature : 31st of December
Starting date : March 2021
