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Seminar Dr. José Manuel Gualberto

Thursday, February 29, 2024 - Pathways and factors involved in the maintenance and transmission of the highly plastic mitochondrial genome of plants
The maintenance, integrity, and proper expression of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) are critical for eukaryotic survival and are regulated by nuclear-encoded factors targeted to the mitochondria. In higher plants, mtDNA is unusually large and has a highly dynamic structure due to recombination events, driving very rapid mtDNA evolution and potentially yielding agronomically valuable traits such as cytoplasmic male sterility.

Given their prokaryotic symbiotic origin, many plant mtDNA maintenance factors are orthologous to bacterial counterparts, but others are plant specific, likely recruited from the ancestral symbiotic host. The complex interplay between these seemingly redundant proteins in mtDNA replication and recombination processes remains poorly understood.

The laboratory of  Dr. José Manuel Gualberto is investigating the alternative mechanisms of mtDNA repair, the functions and interactions of the intervening factors, and the retrograde responses triggered by mitochondrial DNA damage that affect plant growth and fitness. To this end, we are analyzing Arabidopsis mutants lacking mitochondrial maintenance factors, using classical biochemical techniques, and studying the repair of mtDNA breaks induced by sequence-specific mito-targeted TALEN endonucleases.


Dr. José Manuel Gualberto, Maintenance and segregation of the mitochondrial genome, Institut de biologie moléculaire des plantes IBMP, Strasbourg
Invitation
: Hakim Mireau, "Organelles and Reproduction" OrgaRepro team

Contact for Registration
Registration deadline: 25/02/24


Seminar in connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences

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Seminar Dr. José Manuel Gualberto