Section: Research Program

Intracellular interactions

The interactions of a symbiont with others sharing a same host, or with a symbiont and the cell of its host in the case of endosymbionts (organism that lives within the body or cells of another) are special, perhaps more complex cases of intracellular interactions that may concern different types of genetic elements, from organelles to whole chromosomes. The spatial arrangement of those genetic elements inside the nucleus of a cell is believed to be important both for gene expression and exchanges of genetic material between chromosomes. This question goes beyond the symbiosis one and has been investigated in the team in the last few years. Work on this will continue in future and concern developing algorithmic and statistical methods to analyse the interaction data that is starting to become available, in particular using NGS methods, in order to arrive at a better understanding of transcription, regulation both classical and epigenetic (inherited changes in phenotype or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence), alternative splicing and trans-splicing phenomena, as well as study the possible interactions between an eukaryotic cell and its organelles or other cytoplasmic structures.