Associated Laboratories : ENS Lyon
ENS Lyon : Research
• Mechanogenetics of the cell
The team "Mechanogenetics of the cell" is a group of physicists and biologists of the Laboratoire Transdisciplinaire Joliot Curie of Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon working on the organization and dynamics of DNA inside the nucleus, combining multi-scale DNA sequence analysis and genomic data, physical modeling of the mechanical properties of naked DNA and DNA-protein complexes and experimental visualization and manipulation of single molecular complexes by scanning force and high resolution microscopy techniques. These methods are used to address structural and dynamical issues, from the molecular to the cellular scale, from single short DNA molecules to large complexes of chromatin, up to nuclear or nucleolar assemblies. One of the major issue is the role of DNA sequence on the regulation of transcription and replication mechanisms, and more precisely on the implication of the chromatin structure on this regulation. More recently some new interest was developed in the study of the mechanical properties of the nucleus at sub-micrometer scales and to its internal compartments. In particular new projects have emerged concerning the role of the nuclear architecture on the mechanical property of the nucleus and nucleolar compartments, and how the remodeling of the nuclear architecture by molecular factors can influence retroactively the mechanical properties of the cell.
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Contact : Alain Arneodo
• Fonctionnement du Méristème
Thèmes de recherche : Le fonctionnement du méristème apical caulinaire, une population de cellules souches qui génère toute la partie aérienne de la plante. Dans ce contexte un de buts principaux est de lier l’activité des réseaux génétiques à la morphogénèse (la forme physique). Approches : génétique moléculaire, génomique, imagerie quantitative in vivo, biophysique, modélisation. Le but de la modélisation est d’intégrer nos résultats sous forme d’un méristème virtuel, qui nous permettra de proposer de nouvelles hypothèses. Modèle biologique utilisé : Arabidopsis.
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Contacts : Jan Traas, Olivier Hamant
• Genetics of Intra-Species Variations
The group studies the molecular basis of quantitative phenotypic variations between individuals. We are especially interested in 1) the non-deterministic effects that DNA polymorphisms have on regulatory networks and 2) the natural epigenomic diversity and its functional implications on why individuals have different phenotypes. Our experimental system is the powerful yeast S. cerevisiae, and we conduct both experimental genetics (bench) and statistical genetics (programming) to investigate how genotypes and epigenotypes shape the probability that a phenotype emerges in some individuals. Techniques : Single-cell phenomics, flow cytometry, microarrays, ChIP, genomics, Quantitative Genetics mapping, and programming in R and C.
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Contact : Gaël Yvert