Resistance to prasinoviruses analysed by transcriptomics and recombination

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

REVIREC

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2013

End date

1/1/2016

Budget

499,071 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Phytoplankton forms the basis of the food web, and affect biogeochemical cycles and global climate. Unicellular eukaryotes form an active and important part of this diverse reservoir of life, and can be infected by viruses, that thereby control blooms and shape the evolution of biodiversity in phytoplankton, but little is known about their biological functions. Viruses often show strict host strain specificity. This is a crucial factor for determining their impact on phytoplankton populations, but nothing is known about the molecular mechanisms involved in this specificity. The Mamiellales-prasinovirus interaction, where the complete genomes of numerous viruses and their host algal species have been characterised, offers an unparalleled opportunity for integrative interdisciplinary biological analyses. REVIREC aims to describe the molecular processes of these interactions, and investigate both host and viral genes involved in susceptibility and resistance to viruses. Specifically this project will address (i) the time course of biological functionalities involved in host-virus interactions by transcriptomic and recombinational approaches, and (ii) the identification and characterisation of host and viral genes controlling resistance or susceptibility. The phenotypical effects of genes identified by genetical, bioinformatical, statistical and transcriptional analyses will be tested by transformation to assess their biological roles in the interaction, providing important parameters future ecosystem modelling.