Plant Nuclear Dynamics & Signaling

The PNDS lab explores the chromatin mechanisms underlying plant developmental adaptations to environmental changes, with a focus on light conditions

Reshuffling of nuclear architecture and the chromatin landscape is a recurring theme orchestrated in most developmental transitions of eukaryotic organisms. Plants display extraordinary capacities at deploying such mechanisms to continuously adjust their development to external cues. This adaptive feature is at the nexus of their high plasticity and fitness under changing environments. As photosynthetic organisms, plants are particularly sensitive to light, essential as a source of energy and as spatiotemporal information about the environment. 

The goal of our research is to understand the chromatin mechanisms underlying plant adaptive responses and the molecular pathways mediating these transitions. We most notably take advantage of Arabidopsis photomorphogenesis, a major developmental transition induced when young germinating seedlings first access light. This highly controllable transition combines at the cellular level rapid disruptions in nuclear phenotype, massive transcriptional reprogramming, and profound rewiring of metabolic activities. Following the research axes described here, we explore the effects of light signaling pathways and photosynthesis/chloroplast activity on chromatin as well as their links to the molecular mechanisms controlling the transcriptional regime and the 3D organization of genes and transcription in the nuclear space.