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Description: 

Global climate change is increasing several plant stresses like waterlogging and drought, raising major concerns for plant survival in both agro and forest-ecosystems. To cope with these stressful conditions plants have developed a wide range of mechanisms that often lead to a rapid and integrated reprogramming of gene expression patterns. In parallel to these whole transcriptomic responses, specific metabolic pathways may be activated. Recent works showed that the suberin biosynthetic pathway is of primary importance for plant adaptation to water constraints (i.e. excess or default). In this context, the ROOTSEAL project addresses the question of the implication of the suberin biosynthetic pathway in the response and adaptation to abiotic stresses (i.e.waterlogging and drought) in perennials using a comparative analysis between natural (i.e.oak) and cultivated (i.e.grapevine) species. The ROOTSEAL project aims to develop transcriptomic approaches, bioinformatic analyses, and relevant phenotyping methods to identify key molecular players that matter for abiotic stress response and adaptation in perennials. It is based on integrating phenotyping with a comparative analysis of the transcriptomes between tolerant and sensitive genotypes to abiotic stress in grapevine and oaks, and aims at identifying key suberin genes linked to waterlogging and drought stress adaptation in these species. Validation of the candidate genes will be investigated using a segregating population and mutants complementation inArabidopsis thaliana. Finally, comparing oak and grapevine should determine if suberin genes in abiotic stress response and adaptation are conserved in natural populations and cultivated ecosystems.

Our main objectives are to:

1/ perform whole transcriptome characterization and to optimize phenotyping methods to identify key candidate genes (CG) involved in suberin biosynthesis.

2/ determine if the suberin biosynthesis genes induced during waterlogging and drought are the same.

3/ investigate if the CGs contribute in a similar way in the response and adaptation to waterlogging and drought stress in a cultivated and a natural perennial species.

4/ implement a robust bioinformatics pipeline for RNAseq analysis and infer coexpression networks that will allow identifying key CG underlying abiotic stress response and suberisation.

Applicants should be highly motivated and have a PhD with expertise in molecular biology and background in bioinformatics. Knowledge in plant sciences is strongly recommended.

Qualifications: We seek a bright, highly motivated, and enthusiastic molecular biologist with a background in bioinformatic and an interest for plant biology. Experience with NGS technologies and pipeline development is required.  Applicants should have demonstrated abilities to work in a Linux environment and have experience in handling NGS data. Programming (Python, Perl, etc.) is required and knowledge of biostatistics is appreciated. Good communication skills are appreciated.  Ability to work autonomously, as well as part of a team, and to interact with scientist from different background including molecular biologist, plant physiologist and bioinformaticians is necessary.

The selected applicant will have to share their time between two different sites (three laboratories), INRA Pierroton (BIOGECO) and INRA La Grande Ferrade (EGFV and LBM). The project will involve transcriptomic as well as wet-sciences approaches (material collection, microscopy and biochemistry). The project is within the framework of COTE cluster of excellence