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Evolutionary and Molecular Determinants of a Nutritional Polyphenism

Project description

Understanding mechanisms of nutritional polyphenism

Animals are constantly challenged by environmental fluctuations, which require mechanisms to adjust to new conditions. Polyphenism is an original mechanism that produces discrete phenotypes from a single genotype to track environmental changes. The EU-funded ALTEREVO project aims to understand the mechanisms of nutrient-sensitive polyphenism and their evolution. The study will use aphids and their symbionts to investigate the molecular mechanisms of nutritional polyphenism, which creates alternative morphs adapted to distinct host plants, and to understand how this machinery is genetically encoded. The goal is to investigate rapid phenotypic adjustments of aphid morphs to different host plants in an evolutionary framework, utilising metabolomics to identify phenotype-inducing plant compounds, large-scale gene expression, epigenetic analyses, gene functional characterisation and phylogenomics.

Coordinator

INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT
Net EU contribution
€ 2 500 000,00
Address
147 Rue De L'universite
75007 Paris Cedex 07
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Research Organisations
Other funding
€ 0,00