Dr. Marie-Noelle Rosso
INRAE, France
Biography
My research is focused on plant-microbe interactions. After a PhD training at the Institute Sophia Agrobiotech (France) and Wageningen University (The Netherlands), I have worked for 15 years on plant parasitic nematodes and their ability to invade plant tissues, hijack plant defenses and induce the differentiation of plant cells into multinucleate feeding cells. I showed the role of cellulolytic and pectinolytic enzymes in the softening of plant cell walls during invasion of plant roots, and the role of proteins targeted at the apoplasm, the cytosol or the plant cell nuclei in the suppression of plant basal immunity. Since 2011, I am investigating the enzymatic mechanisms involved in plant cell wall degradation by wood decay fungi. I have been studying the diversity of these mechanisms through comparative genomics, transcriptomics and secretomics in fungal strains from diverse phylogenetic taxa and geo-climatic origins. I am now widening the scope of my research toward functional genomics for the characterization of the response of fungi to environmental stress, with a special emphasis on basidiomycete secondary metabolites.