Project description
Evolution of plant-fungi relationships
Millions of years ago, plants developed the ability to form symbiotic associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that help plants take up nutrients. Although this relationship is so fundamental for life on land as we know it today, little is known about the plant cell types capable of hosting these beneficial fungi. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RESTORE project will investigate how symbiosis-competent cell types emerged and were conserved over hundreds of millions of years of plant evolution. Researchers will undertake an experimental approach to identify conserved genetic programmes that enable cells to support fungal partners. Project findings will advance our understanding of plant evolution and pave the way for sustainable agriculture practices.
Objective
Life on land as we know it today would not exist without a key plant innovation 450 million years ago: the ability to form symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi. Intriguingly, this symbiosis is restricted to specific cell types. For example, in vascular plants arbuscules form in root cortical cells, while in rootless non-vascular plants they occur in aerial tissues such as the thallus in Marchantia paleacea. The fact that this trait evolved once and has been maintained across most extant plants suggests that AM symbiosis competence is an intrinsic cell type property inherited from the most recent common ancestor that first formed this association.
To test this hypothesis, RESTORE aims to understand how specific cell types acquired and maintained the competence to host symbionts over hundreds of millions of years by: (i) generating a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of M. paleacea as a model non-vascular plant, (ii) identifying conserved gene regulatory modules from single-cell data of AM-relevant tissues across extant species, refined with phylogenomic analyses, and (iii) functionally validating top candidate regulators in both M. paleacea and the vascular legume Medicago truncatula, assessing their role in AM symbiosis.
This interdisciplinary project brings together the host lab’s expertise in evo-devo and plant symbiosis, where M. paleacea has been established as a novel model, with my experience in cross-species single-cell transcriptomics and taking advantage of the growing availability of single-cell datasets. RESTORE will not only establish a new conceptual framework for evo-devo studies considering cellular diversification across species evolution but also provide knowledge to expand symbiotic cell fates in crops, offering new strategies for sustainable agriculture. At the same time, it will strength my profile as an independent researcher at the interface of evo-devo, computational biology and plant-microbe interactions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture sustainable agriculture
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology mycology
- natural sciences biological sciences biological behavioural sciences ethology biological interactions
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture grains and oilseeds legumes
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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31400 Toulouse
France
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