Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

National Initiatives

ANR MYKIMUN.

Signal Transduction Associated with Numerous Domains (STAND) proteins play a central role in vegetative incompatibility (VI) in fungi. STAND proteins act as molecular switches, changing from closed inactive conformation to open active conformation upon binding of the proper ligand. Mykimun, coordinated by Mathieu Paoletti of the IBGC (Bordeaux), studies the postulated involvement of STAND proteins in heterospecific non self recognition (innate immune response).

In MYKIMUN we extend the notion of fungal immune receptors and immune reaction beyond the P. anserina NWD gene family. We develop in silico machine learning tools to identify new potential PRRs based on the expected characteristics of such genes, in P. anserina and beyond in additional sequenced fungal genomes. This should contribute to extend concept of a fungal immune system to the whole fungal branch of the eukaryote phylogenetic tree.