I obtained in 2012 a 3-year grant from the french ANR organism. The main goal of this grant is to facilitate the come-back of french post doctorate in their country. In addition, this grant provided funds that I used to buy equipment, hire people (and pay salaries) and make this new small structure function daily.PROJECT SUMMARY: For decades, scientists believed that the rigid wall surrounding bacterial cells (prokaryotes) was the only shape-determining factor. In higher organisms… Show more I obtained in 2012 a 3-year grant from the french ANR organism. The main goal of this grant is to facilitate the come-back of french post doctorate in their country. In addition, this grant provided funds that I used to buy equipment, hire people (and pay salaries) and make this new small structure function daily.PROJECT SUMMARY: For decades, scientists believed that the rigid wall surrounding bacterial cells (prokaryotes) was the only shape-determining factor. In higher organisms (eukaryotes), cells have a meshwork of protein filaments, particularly actin filaments, which control cellular shape. This complex meshwork is known as the “cytoskeleton”. More recently, it has been shown that bacteria also have a dynamic cytoskeleton involved in the spatial organization of processes essentially associated with cellular growth.In this fundamental research project, we propose to study the actin cytoskeleton (encoded by the mre genes) during the development, in stationary phase, of competence and sporulation, the two main environmental adaptations in the model organism Bacillus subtilis. The development of these two processes, which have been studied for more than 80 years, requires a large reorganization of gene expression, protein localization but also of cell shape in B. subtilis. Because they are energetically costly, these physiological adaptations impose a growth arrest. However, it has been shown that the expression of the mre genes is activated during the development of competence or sporulation. But why are the actin cytoskeleton genes, which are among the major cellular growth determinants controlling peptidoglycan synthesis, induced while the cells have stopped dividing?In this research project, we propose a multi disciplinary approach (transcriptional regulation, microscopy, biochemistry) in order to characterize the organization, the eventual restructuring and the functions of the actin cytoskeleton in stationary phase. Show less

Bacterial environmental adaptations (sporulation, biofilm formation, competence for natural transformation, motility).I had during this period a total of 6 publications, all in journals with peer-review (one of them is a chapter in an ASM book). I signed 4 of these papers as first author, one as second and one as fourth.

Competence and natural transformation regulation in the human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae.