Junior Research Scientist on the determinism of host specificity of phytopathogenic bacteria

You will carry out your research activity within the Plant-Microbe-Environment Interactions Laboratory (LIPME), a joint INRAE-CNRS research unit located on the INRAE Occitanie-Toulouse campus. LIPME (www.lipme.fr), bringing together nearly 150 staffs, is structured into 13 research groups and benefits from a scientific framework favoring interactions with several plant biology and ecology laboratories in the Toulouse region. You will join the SIX team “Infectious Strategies of Xanthomonas” (www.xantho.fr) whose major objective is to decipher the molecular dialogue between pathogenic bacteria and plants.
Our inability to predict host specificity in plant pathogens from their genomes and effector repertoires strongly limits the anticipation and prevention of epidemic risks and host jumps associated with the introduction of new crops or pathogenic microbes. To date, only few microbial effector proteins have been described as determinants of host specificity. By relying on original methodological and biological proofs of concept developed within the SIX team, you will decipher, using a synthetic biology approach, the genetic determinisms of host specificity in pathogenic bacteria of the Xanthomonas genus and develop a predictive approach. To this end, you will study effectors from Xanthomonas of varied host spectra. The generic high-throughput strategy that you will develop can be extended to other candidate gene families and other plant pathogens. For this synthetic biology project, you will exploit your expertise in microbial genetics, molecular biology and statistical processing of omics data. You will benefit from a suitable experimental and bioinformatics environment and pre-established collaborations on the subject.