Bonnot Clémence

Junior Research Associate (CRCN INRAE) in MOLECULAR PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANT NUTRITION

Contact and Research IDs:

Research:

I am genuinely interested in understanding how plant perceive and adapt to their nutritive environment. Within this theme, my research revolves around two axes:

  • Dissecting nutrient stresses signalling pathways
  • Understanding the genetic mechanisms of the evolution of nutritive organs and functions

In the context of Tree-Microbe interactions I aim to decipher how trees integrate nutrient needs, stress signals and ectomycorrhizal associations to maintain an optimal growth. I want to identify some of the molecular mechanisms allowing trees to regulate ectomycorrhizal symbiosis in response to their nutritive status and environment, to reveal how these pathways are integrated to other biotic and abiotic stress signals (water deficit, heat, pathogens attacks etc…). Finally, I aim to use them to explore the evolutionary origin of ectomycorrhizal symbiosis in trees in order to verify the transposability of these mechanisms to different trees and fungi and therefore the predictability of the evolution of ectomycorrhizal interactions in our changing forest ecosystems.

At the moment I am working on two main topics:

  • The investigation of the regulation of the ectomycorrhizal partnership between Poplar and the basidiomycete Laccaria bicolor by nitrogen. I am mainly interested in the role of small secreted proteins (SSPs) in this process.
  • Understanding the fluxes of carbone and nitrogen between trees and ectomycorrhizal and endophytic fungi and their impact on trees performances.

Current projects:

PopSCREEN (Leader): Identifying poplars small secreted proteins (SSPs) regulating ectomycorrhizal symbiosis in response to nitrate stresses.

DePasse (co-Leader with Marc Buée UMR IAM): Pré-maturation project. Confidential.

POPmodels (Participante): Characterising the carbone and nitrogen exchanges between poplar and fungal endophytes.

EpiMyc (Participante): Comprendre les bases épigénétiques de la symbiose ectomycorhizienne.

Past projects:

NUTRRESYM (Leader): Identifying the nutrient signals that regulates ectomcorrhizal association between P x canescens and L. bicolor.

Bio

After a Master in Plant Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Bordeaux (2006-2008), I obtained a PhD grant from the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives) to work under the supervision of Dr. Thierry Desnos (UMR 7265 LBDP) on the phosphate starvation signalling pathway in the model plant A. thaliana (2008-2011). I received my PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Marseille in 2011. I then spent 6 years (2011-2017) as a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford in the Dolan Lab investigating the evolutionary origin of nutritive organs and functions during plant transition and progressive adaptation to land. During that time, I also worked two years for Syngenta (2015-2017) on the establishment and standardization of a high-throughput agrochemical screen procedure on a non-model plant for the discovery of mode of actions (MoA). I moved to Nancy in 2017 and joined the UMR IAM as a Posdoctoral fellow to work with Dr. Francis Martin (2017-2020). There, I lead the project NUTRRESYM aiming to verify whether poplar could regulate its ectomycorrhizal association to Laccaria bicolor in response to nutrient stresses. In 2020, I stopped science and worked as a project manager in the French national research funding agency (ANR). I coordinated several European funded and French funded funding programs. Finally in 2020, I was hired as a junior research associate in the UMR IAM. I am in the process of building y own research thematic within the Ecogenomic of interaction team.

Publications: Link to google scholar