Stage M2S3 (2018-2019)

Photosynthetic organisms use the beneficial effect of sunlight as a source of energy and of developmental information from the environment. However, the ultraviolet (UV) component of sunlight can also produce several types of DNA damage, which can affect cell and genome integrity. Thus plants may have developped sophisticated and coordinated processes to prevent deleterious effects of UV on genome structures while allowing enough plasticity for evolution and adaptation. More generally it is likely that UV may have contributed to shape the plant genome and epigenome.
The project aims at identifying, the genomic and epigenomic features of specific chromosomal regions identified to be prone to form DNA photo-damage. These loci, called hot spots of DNA damage, will serve as markers to track their stability/plasitcity in large set of flowering plant regarding their species, ecological niches, in order to define how UV irradiation may have contributed to shape genome/epigenome in plants.
Therefore these remarkable genomic regions (hot spots) and the genomic/epigenomic ressources of flowering plants represent a materiel of choice to decipher the coordinated roles of the DNA repair machinery, the DNA methylation processes and environmental stress (i.e. UV) in shaping (epi)genomes.
The student will look for genomic sequences similar to the already identified hot spots, in Arabidopsis natural variants, in Brassicaceae species and in angiosperms (extracted from public databases).