Seminar Dr Clémentine Vitte
Identifying the contribution of transposable elements to cis-regulatory elements in plants - Thursday, 26th March 2026 11 am, INRAE, Versailles
Cis-regulatory elements (CREs) are key players of gene expression spatio-temporal regulation across development and in response to the environment. While these regions can now be molecularly depicted in plants, notably using information of chromatin accessibility and DNA methylation, characterization of stress-responsive CREs is still limited. In addition, Transposable Elements (TEs) have been proposed as a source of new CREs in plants and animals, but their relative contribution to developmental and stress-induced CREs and their contribution to the emergence of regulatory networks in plants remains to be fully elucidated.
In a recent study (Fagny et al., 2021), we used a systems biology approach to investigate the enhancer-driven regulatory network of two maize tissues at different stages: leaves at seedling stage and ear-covering bracts at flowering (husk) and made the proof of concept that such enhancer-driven networks can leverage the characterization of biologically-relevant regulatory modules in plants. Moreover, we showed that enhancers specifically active in each tissue are enriched in two different TE superfamilies, highlighting the potential role of TEs in plant tissue differentiation.
In parallel, we have contributed to the development of SAM-seq, a methodology allowing to simultaneously analyze chromatin accessibility and DNA methylation in plants in an unprecedented manner (Leduque et al., 2024). Use of this method in maize seedlings revealed new epigenomic patterns for some transposable elements, which analysis was previously hampered by Illumina-based technologies due to their repetitiveness.
Following these studies, we now want to investigate the contribution of TEs to plant evolution, by leveraging both CRE characterization and TE annotation for several plant species.
Clémentine Vitte,"Génétique Quantitative & Evolution" GQE-Le Moulon, IDEEV, Gif-sur-Yvette
Invitation : Oumaya bouchabké-Coussa, "Cell Biology and Plant Regeneration" BCR team
Seminar in connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.
In a recent study (Fagny et al., 2021), we used a systems biology approach to investigate the enhancer-driven regulatory network of two maize tissues at different stages: leaves at seedling stage and ear-covering bracts at flowering (husk) and made the proof of concept that such enhancer-driven networks can leverage the characterization of biologically-relevant regulatory modules in plants. Moreover, we showed that enhancers specifically active in each tissue are enriched in two different TE superfamilies, highlighting the potential role of TEs in plant tissue differentiation.
In parallel, we have contributed to the development of SAM-seq, a methodology allowing to simultaneously analyze chromatin accessibility and DNA methylation in plants in an unprecedented manner (Leduque et al., 2024). Use of this method in maize seedlings revealed new epigenomic patterns for some transposable elements, which analysis was previously hampered by Illumina-based technologies due to their repetitiveness.
Following these studies, we now want to investigate the contribution of TEs to plant evolution, by leveraging both CRE characterization and TE annotation for several plant species.
Clémentine Vitte,"Génétique Quantitative & Evolution" GQE-Le Moulon, IDEEV, Gif-sur-Yvette
Invitation : Oumaya bouchabké-Coussa, "Cell Biology and Plant Regeneration" BCR team
Seminar in connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.
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