Biology subjects

Hanemian, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Hanemian, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

An Arabidopsis receptor-like kinase mediates competitive plant-plant interactions

While competition among plant species is recognized as a major factor affecting crop yield and plant community dynamics, the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying natural variation of such biotic interactions remain poorly characterized. Here, we report the cloning of a Quantitative Trait Locus previously detected in a Genome-Wide Association Study investigating the competitive response of Arabidopsis thaliana to the presence of the annual bluegrass weed species Poa annua. Using mutant and complementation strategies, we identified ESCAPE 1 (ESC1) as the gene responsible for the natural variation of an escape strategy of A. thaliana in response to the presence of P. annua. ESC1 encodes a proline-rich, extensin-like receptor kinase, also known as PERK13. An RNA-seq experiment revealed that PERK13 functions through different pathways in leaves and roots involving genes associated with responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Using these RNA-seq together with yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) data, protein-protein interaction network reconstruction revealed two distinct decentralized protein networks in leaves and roots. These findings support the notion of an active response mechanism involved in neighbor detection. The functional validation of ESC1 underlying natural variation in response to competition opens new avenues for a better understanding of the molecular dialogue involved in plant-plant interactions. HighlightIn this study, we identify a receptor-like kinase enabling Arabidopsis thaliana to detect neighboring species through the activation of specific genetic pathways.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Transcriptional natural variation at FLM induces synergistic pleiotropy in Arabidopsis thaliana

Investigating the evolution of complex phenotypes and the underlying molecular bases of their variation is critical to understand how organisms adapt to the environment. We used leaf growth as a model trait as it is highly integrative of internal and external cues and relies on functions at different levels of the plant organization. Applying classical quantitative genetics on a recombinant inbred line population derived from a Can-0 x Col-0 cross, we identified the MADS-box transcription factor FLOWERING LOCUS M (FLM) as a player of the phenotypic variation for leaf growth and colour. Interestingly, we showed that allelic variation at FLM modulates plant growth strategy along the leaf economics spectrum, a trade-off between resource acquisition and resource conservation observable across thousands of plant species. We demonstrated that the functional differences at FLM relies on a single intronic substitution, disturbing transcript splicing and leading to a low expression of the active FLM transcript. Using phenotypic and climatic data across Arabidopsis natural populations, our work shows how noncoding genetic variation of a single gene may be adaptive through synergistic pleiotropy.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2018

The complex genetic architecture of shoot growth natural variation in Arabidopsis thaliana

One of the main outcome of quantitative genetics approaches to natural variation is to reveal the genetic architecture underlying the phenotypic space. Complex genetic architectures are described as including numerous loci (or alleles) with small-effect and/or low-frequency in the populations, interactions with the genetic background, environment or age... Linkage or association mapping strategies will be more or less sensitive to this complexity, so that we still have an unclear picture of its extent. By combining high-throughput phenotyping under two environmental conditions with classical QTL mapping approaches in multiple Arabidopsis thaliana segregating populations as well as advanced near isogenic lines construction and survey, we have attempted to push back the limits of our understanding of quantitative phenotypic variation. Integrative traits such as those related to vegetative growth used in this work (highlighting either cumulative growth, growth rate or morphology) all showed complex and dynamic genetic architecture with respect to the segregating population and condition. The more resolutive our mapping approach, the more complexity we uncover, with several instances of QTLs visible in near isogenic lines but not detected with the initial QTL mapping, indicating that our phenotyping resolution was less limiting than the mapping resolution with respect to the underlying genetic architecture. In an ultimate approach to resolve this complexity, we intensified our phenotyping effort to target specifically a 3Mb-region known to segregate for a major quantitative trait gene, using a series of selected lines recombined every 100kb. We discovered that at least 3 other independent QTLs had remained hidden in this region, some with trait- or condition-specific effects, or opposite allelic effects. If we were to extrapolate the figures obtained on this specific region in this particular cross to the genome- and species-scale, we would predict hundreds of causative loci of detectable phenotypic effect controlling these growth-related phenotypes.

genetics↗