Master 2 internship (6 months – Jan-June 2025) – INRAE – IRHS lab, Angers, France
Subject: Plant microbiome engineering through seed inoculation to promote resistance to pathogen
Context and research objectives.
All plants harbor a diverse microbiome colonizing aboveground and belowground plant habitats. These microorganisms can play an important role for plant health and yield in an agricultural context. Still, limited knowledge is available on the role of plant microbiota during the early stages of plant life, especially in seed germination and seedling emergence. Seeds exhibit diverse microbiota but currently the causal relationships between seed microbiota diversity and seedling emergence have not been established. Gaining a better understanding of the role of this microbiota for seed germination and seedling establishment is particularly timely. The seed industry is preparing for a major revolution in seed treatments associated to the reduction of pesticide usage, and harnessing the capabilities of the seed microbiota represents one of the most promising solutions.
In this context, synthetic ecology approaches with the reconstruction of synthetic microbial communities (including bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi) will be used to experimentally establish the causal links and quantify the influence of seed microbiota on seedling health. More specifically, the objectives of this internship will be to assess the protective effects of synthetic microbiota against the oomycete plant pathogen Globisporangium ultimum (previously Pythium).
During this internship, you will perform greenhouse experiments using synthetic microbial communities on common bean. The phenotypes and symptoms of the seedlings will be monitored on the PHENOTIC platform. The identification of the microorganisms responsible for these effects will be done using metabarcoding and knock-out experiments in which the microorganisms of interest are removed from the synthetic community. We will also perform RNA extractions for meta-transcriptomics analyses to analyze the microbial traits involved in plant colonization and antagonism against the pathogen.
Overall, this project will enable to uncover the role of seed microbiota (bacteria and fungi) in phytoprotection against an important soil-borne pathogen and identify microbial consortia for biocontrol applications.
Degree, Skills and Technics: Master 1 in Ecology or Microbiology
We expect the applicants to have at least two of the skills listed here: Community ecology, Plant physiology and phenotyping, Bioinformatics, Microbiology.
Team: This internship will be performed at the IRHS (Institut de Recherche en Horticulture et Semences) of Angers in the EmerSys team that developed an expertise related to seed microbiota and the SMS team specialized in seedling physiology and metabolism. The co-supervision of the student will be done by Elisabeth Planchet, Béatrice Teulat and Marie Simonin, and PhD student Louna Colaert-Sentenac. This internship will be conducted in the frame of the PPR-CPA SUCSEED project.
Application before Sept 15th: Send a CV, motivation letter and Master 1 results to marie.simonin@inrae.fr
Important: An active Master student status is required; we cannot recruit candidates that have already graduated from their Master programs.
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