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To migrate efficiently, cells must be persistent. When cells migrate randomly, there is already some persistence. When cells migrate in a directed manner, persistence is biased in the direction of attraction or repulsion. Little is known about the regulation of persistence, except that the Rac1-WAVE

Heart pumping and shaping take place concomitantly during embryonic development. These two processes require a tight and dynamic coordination between mechanical forces and tissue morphogenesis. Importantly, in the adult, a cardiac disease or myocardial infarction can, sometimes very abruptly, alter

Drosophila melanogaster is the major insect model organism where mechanisms of cell and developmental biology have been addressed using a plethora of tools and resources. However, important developmental mechanisms are not experimentally tractable in Drosophila because they are secondarily lost or m

The dynamic transcriptional networks that are developmentally coordinated to establish and maintain gene expression profiles in adult stem cells, ensuring their self-renewal throughout adult life, while allowing the proper differentiation of stem cell progeny during tissue homeostasis and remodeling

The mature mammalian cortex is organized in 6 distinct neuronal layers that are composed of different types of projection neurons and interneurons exhibiting specific molecular identities, morphologies and wiring capacities. Cortical projection neurons are produced by sequential waves of differenti

Insights into the functioning of the innate immune system are crucial to be able to design appropriate immunotherapies. However, we still lack basic knowledge regarding the regulation of innate sensing by nucleic acid sensors named endosomal Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs). Our project aims at decipherin

Eukaryotic cells, such as yeast or human cells, are formed of compartments associated with specific cellular functions. The nucleus is the library of 'knowledge' of the cell, and the cytoplasm, where the library books are translated into cellular actions. The Nuclear Pore Complex represents the uniq

One of the most striking features of embryonic development is that differentiation is happening in a spatially ordered fashion: tissue self-organize to form well-defined patterns that pre-figure the body plan. During gastrulation, the cells of the embryo are allocated into three germ layers: ectoder

In living organisms, the ability of cells to move across surfaces (cell motility) is a universal feature of multicellularity. In eukaryots, cell motility is essential a different stages of embryogenesis and to maintain an organism’s general homeostasis, for tissue repair or to protect against pathog

Mechanics are a constitutive part of a cell’s existence. Forces result from the cell's constant interaction with its environment, and are generated within the cell as it organizes its inner life. To achieve this, the cell relies on a complex metabolism where mechanical and biochemical aspects are in

Arrays of cilia beating at the surface of multiciliated epithelia drive cerebrospinal fluid circulation in the brain, mucus clearance in the airway, and egg transportation along the oviduct. Impairment of this function can lead to severe conditions, such hydrocephalus, chronic sinusitis and respirat

While great effort is being made to understand and manipulate the signaling cascade downstream of ligand receptor activation, less attention has been payed to the mecanisms that control Hh transport to target cells. To study these mecanisms, we focus on the processes responsible for Hh release and t

Abscission is the last step of cytokinesis that physically separates the cytoplasm of sister cells. This aspect of cell division is the least understood, and has just begun to be characterized molecularly. It is challenging to explore, as it takes place at the very end of cell division and manipulat

Mitosis involves the complex coordination of cytoskeleton rearrangements in which the action of nanomotors is temporally and spatially controlled to precisely divide chromosomes and cytoplasm of a cell. While basic features of molecular motor function have been understood, the most burning open ques

Vertebrate development is orchestrated by complex gene regulatory networks (GRNs), which remain largely unexplored. Redundancy within protein families, paralogous genes swapping across species and fail-safe mechanisms complicate these networks establishment, beyond the technical difficulties linked

The capacity of the skeletal muscle to regenerate depends on satellite cells, the quiescent stem cells of the adult muscle. Quiescent satellite cells are activated in response to injury or in degenerative muscle diseases. During regeneration, a proportion of the activated satellite cells self-renews

Multiciliated cells (MCC) cover human epithelia to propel physiological fluids. A hallmark of their differentiation is the formation of up to 200 centrioles from which motile cilia are nucleated. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of their formation are still unidentified. Using a MCC culture assay, our re