Phd contract in the field of Medical sciences financed for three years by the University of Clermont Auvergne

Role of GH1 domain proteins in chromatin organization and transcription in Arabidopsis thaliana

Chromatin is a flexible structure that regulateseukaryotic genome expression in response to developmental and environmental signals. The spatiotemporal control of developmental gene expression depends in particular on the balance between deposition and eviction of the repressive mark K27me3 on histone H3 at the regulatory regions of target genes. The deposition of this mark is ensured by the polycombcomplex PRC2. The recruitment and activity of the PRC2 complex is fine-tunedby many factors including GH1-domain proteins that,in plants, can be classedin three distinct families: histone H1s, TRBs and GH1-HMGAs. Solidpreliminary data indicate that several proteins belonging to these three families are actively involved in the regulation of H3K27me3 mark deposition. In this project, we willstudy how these proteins act on chromatin organization and influence the deposition and eviction of the H3K27me3 mark thereby contributingtoPRC2-regulated gene transcription.

1-Teano G et al.(2021) Histone H1 protects telomeric repeats from H3K27me3 invasion inArabidopsis.BioRxivdoi.org/10.1101/2020.11.28.402172.

2-CharbonnelC et al. (2018), The Linker Histone GH1-HMGA1 Is Involved in Telomere Stability and DNA Damage Repair.Plant Physiol.177(1):311-327.