Thesis defense: Shuang Peng

Investigation of germination and the rearrangement of the proteome and metabolism to enhance seed quality and defense through peptide production: Integrative and predictive approaches

Germination and seedling emergence are critical stages for plant production. Indeed, the transition from a heterotrophic state to autotrophic development is highly sensitive to environmental constraints. This thesis focuses on the analysis of germination descriptors, providing a tool for physiologists to enhance germination phenotyping. This approach will also enable the integration of a wide range of germination indices into genomic analyses. Mechanisms of resistance/tolerance to thermal stress remain poorly described at these initial stages of germination. This work unveils the metabolic transitions of lentil germination under the influence of temperature through proteomic and metabolomic approaches, allowing for the study of proteome rearrangements and the potential to enhance the nutritional value of seeds. Functional gene annotation approaches and statistical modeling of proteomic and metabolomic data on germinating seeds will lead to a better understanding of stress response mechanisms and the characterization of seed quality biomarkers. Finally, this thesis involves implementing an artificial intelligence approach to predict antimicrobial peptides generated by reserve protein hydrolysis during germination. The entirety of the work developed in this thesis will be widely shared with the scientific community in plant sciences.

Director: Loïc Rajjou - INRAE, IJPB, Versailles, "Germination Physiology" PHYGERM team

Members of the jury
> Frédéric Capel (Rapporteur) - INRAE, Nutrition humaine, Saint-Genès-Champanelle
> Béatrice Teulat (Rapportrice) - IRHS, SMS, Beaucouzé
> Thomas Blein (Examinateur) - CNRS, IPS2, Gif-sur-Yvette
> Juliette Leymarie (Examinatrice) – IEES, Université Paris Est Créteil, Paris
> Thomas Simonson (Examinateur) – Polytechnique, LBSC, Palaiseau

To attend, contact, Loïc Rajjou


Research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.