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The François Jacob Institute of Biology brings together five departments and three services
The last two years in scientific news
A team from the Genomics Metabolics laboratory (Genoscope / CEA-Jacob) has developed a bioinformatics analysis method for environmental genomics data and applied it to those of plankton resulting from the Tara Oceans expeditions. The method reconstructs transcriptomes of eukaryotes from environmental sequencing data, thus enabling access to the genetic organization of these organisms, even those that have not yet been described, to study their functional potential. Also, with the method, interspecies associations can be identified across samples taken in different oceanic provinces. The novel approach is a door to the environmental context and biological functions of numerous species of ecological interest. The team's work was published in Genome Research.
A study on preclinical imaging involving several national research organisms (Inserm, CNRS, CEA, Universities) has produced MRI relaxometry maps for healthy rat brains. The impetus for that work is to be found in the France Life Imaging (FLI) initiative and its continuing momentum manifests today as the Small Animal Imaging Network (SAIN), which unites about ten French imaging facilities. The study, published in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, demonstrates the feasibility of large-scale, multicenter, MRI studies in the preclinical setting.
In a study published in Acta Neuropathologica Communications, researchers from LEE (CNRGH/CEA-Jacob) and the LRSN (Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg University Hospital, Copenhagen) joined forces to characterize DNA methylation profiles in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA). The team brought to light epigenetic aspects that suggest an active neuro-immune response in patients with MSA. Their work contributes to a better understanding of the diseases and opens new horizons for therapeutic strategies.
Researchers from SRHI in partnership with the MICS lab (CentraleSupélec, Paris-Saclay University) have identified new immune checkpoints as potential targets in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. The team's results, obtained by pairing statistics and biological analyses, have been published in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy.
The platform MicroScope was launched in 2002 by LABGeM (Genoscope) to provide the international microbiology community with bioinformatics tools for the analysis and exploration of prokaryote genomes. The platform's innovations were recently highlighted in a special edition of Nucleic Acids Research on databases. The journal's readers can discover MicroScope's recent developments for the functional annotation of genes, the characterization of genomic islands, and the analysis of pan-genomes.
The term "synucleinopathy" covers a range of diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy, that involve pathological alpha-synuclein aggregations. An analysis of the properties of the different aggregate strains present in synucleinopathies has delineated the molecular bases of the diseases. The study, led by MIRCen (CEA-Jacob) researchers in partnership with the University of Louvain and Imperial College London, was published in Acta Neuropathologica
A year and a half after the publication of the complete sequence of the pedunculated oak genome by a national consortium led by INRAE and CEA (Genoscope), the first results based on this genomic resource are the subject of a series of articles published on 16 April 2020 in the journal New Phytologist.
Through an international collaboration, researchers from the LRTS laboratory (IRCM/CEA-Jacob) have characterized the cellular and molecular events regulating the balance between fibrotic repair and tissue regeneration and have identified a key player in this balance : macrophages. This study, published in Science Advances, opens up a new therapeutic perspective for the treatment of pathological tissue lesions.
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CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.