Dynamic And regulation of the MItochondrial translational Apparatus in Arabidopsis – DAMIA

This multidisciplinary project consists in the mechanistic study of specific processes linked to mitochondrial translation in plants. In particular, we are interested in the mechanisms related to the translational initiation step, the organization and structuring of the plant mitoribosome and its specialization in the synthesis of membrane-bound proteins. This research is driven by the fact that mitoribosomes have widely divergent compositions and structures compared with their bacterial and eukaryotic counterparts, although for unknown reasons as yet. Furthermore, although mitochondria have a distant bacterial origin, the translational initiation step in these organelles involves processes that are yet poorly understood but which seem to have diverged in many ways from the mechanisms guiding translational initiation in bacteria. To better understand these differences, we will conduct a structure-function analysis of the mitoribosome and study the mechanisms ensuring translational initiation in the mitochondria of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The project will be carried out by a consortium of teams with expertise in molecular genetics, biochemistry and structural biology. It will involve the molecular and biochemical study of mutant plants, cryo electron microscopy and ribosome profiling. The results obtained will provide a better understanding of the diversity and evolution of translational mechanisms in eukaryotes.