Partner 3 : UMR 8618 UPSud11-CNRS Paris
Unit name : Institut de Biologie des Plantes/IBP
Description of the research unit: The Plant Biology Institute, together with the Institut des Sciences Végétales/IBP and the Institut d’Ecologie Systématique et Evolution/ESE (who will join their efforts under the IBP banner) are dedicated to research in plant biology and physiology. This Institute masters several key technologies requested for the success of VaBiome, notably tools in cytogenetics. These tools include flow cytometry and various methods in cytology and cytogenetics. The aim is to measure various data in relation to genome dynamics (ploidy level, chromosome number, DNA repetition, Fish & Gish sequences localisation, anomalies in genome organization) to understand processes of adaptation to ecosystems. IBP does use, among many other things, these tools to understand mutations involved in the disturbance of the normal cell cycle of plant (endoreduplication), or abnormalities during meiosis analysis in relation to biodiversity and ecological studies. In these domains IBP has a leadership in the Genetics of plant homologous recombination, in the molecular processes involved for the regulation of the cell cycle. IBP, ISV and ESE do cooperate tightly for the use and development of imaging technologies for cytogenetics in plants.
Expertise and skills: Concerning Vanilla, IBP, with the help of ISV-ESE and in a strong collaboration with PVBMT (La Réunion) and EVT (Polynesia) (Bureau des Ressources Génétiques-BRG project AP 2003-2004) have contributed to a better understanding of the chromosome number/genome size in the key aromatic species of the Vanilla genus (V. planifolia and V. tahitensis). They have also made an exciting observation, presently under more extensive study, related to a new mechanism of differential endo-reduplication in the Vanilla genus. This stimulating observation has been done because of the very tight exchanges between these teams in French Overseas and Gif-Orsay.
Name of staff involved in the project : Michel DRON (Prof Université Paris sud 11- IBP/Orsay) (Scientific Responsible), Sonja YAKOVLEV (Dir Recherche CNRS, ESE/Orsay), Spencer BROWN (Dir CNRS, ISV-Gif sur Yvette), Michaël BOURGE IE CNRS, (ISV-Gif sur Yvette).
Facilities (lab description) Most experimentations are carried out using a ELITE ESP (Beckman-Coulter), flow cytometer equipped with 3 lasers, : a He-Ne laser (633 nm), a laser Ar in visible wavelength(488 nm ), a laser Ar UV Coherent (360 ; 457 ; 488; 514 nm )
