Muskan Kalra

Team : FeROS – IPSiM

Supervisor : Christian Dubos

Title : Getting new insights into the control of plant mineral nutrition: the transcriptional regulation of iron homeostasis

Abstract : Iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient for plant productivity and the quality of their derived products. It is a co-factor for numerous reactions involving electron transfer/oxidation-reduction such as photosynthesis or respiration. Iron is also one of the most deficient micronutrients in the human diet and leads to anemia. As plants are the source for iron to enter the food chain, bio-fortification of plants to increase iron appears to be the most sustainable option.
The regulation of the plant response to fluctuations in Fe availability has been extensively studied and the intricate network of transcription factors, post- translational modifications, and peptide interactions underscores the highly regulated nature of iron homeostasis, ensuring that plants maintain a delicate balance between iron uptake and availability to meet their physiological needs without incurring toxicity.   
My PhD project aims to delve deeper into the transcriptional regulatory pathway controlling iron homeostasis in Arabidopsis thaliana using a multiomics approach and to investigate whether the studied transcriptional factors have a role to play in the long-distance signaling of plant iron status between the aerial tissues to the roots, via the phloem, in order to coordinate iron uptake with its use.

Arthur Crouset

Team : TICER – IPSiM

Supervisor : Pierre Berthomieu

Title :  Study of the involvement of OsHAK genes in leaf rolling in rice

Abstract : Leaf rolling in cereals is a dynamic adaptive response that helps mitigate the effects of certain stresses, such as water deficiency. This rolling is controlled by bulliform cells present in the leaves. It is the change in turgor pressure of these cells that allows the leaves to roll or unroll.
The starting point of the project is that a quintuple mutant of high-affinity potassium transporters of the HAK family is characterized by an absence of leaf rolling in response to potassium deficiency, unlike the wild type. The objective is to carry out a classical molecular physiology study of the HAK genes involved to understand their role in the leaf rolling process.

Sadia Akter Prity

Team : TICER – IPSiM

Supervisor : Pierre Berthomieu

Title :  Exploring mechanisms behind leaf rolling in rice.

Abstract : Leaf rolling is a physiological adaptive phenotype in response to several kind of stress such as drought stress. There are different cells in leaf that are involve in leaf rolling. Among the cells bulliform cell plays important role in the leaf rolling phenotype by osmoregulatory function. Although several genes have been identified responsible for the stable leaf rolling, there is lack of research on dynamic leaf rolling and mechanism behind this phenotype. My Ph.D. project is to identify what is the mechanisms behind the leaf rolling taking an account of guard cell model, since bulliform cell may act like guard cells which are responsible for stomatal opening and closing.  The second part of my project is to identify an environmental condition that able to show dynamic leaf rolling to study the internal factor behind it.