Tackling the role of P-bodies in RNA metabolism and neurodevelopment

Summury : P-bodies are cytoplasmic condensates composed of proteins involved in post-transcriptional regulation and RNAs. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to assign them an essential role in specific post-transcriptional pathways. In our group, we tackle this question by investigating the content of P-bodies and its changes in dynamic processes such as cell cycle progression. We also try to learn from a syndromic form of neurodevelopmental disease associated with P-body defects, caused by mutations in an essential P-body component, the DDX6 helicase. Our results indicate that P-bodies have all features for contributing to the regulation of gene expression and that this is essential for neurodevelopment in human.

Bio : During my PhD in François Dautry’s lab at IGR in Villejuif (close to Paris), defended in 1990, I  investigated the early response to Interleukin 2 in T lymphocyte, and particularly what happened post-transcriptionally. In 1993, I joined the Greg Johnson lab at QIMR in Brisbane (Australia) for a 2.5 year-postdoc in experimental hematology, where I studied kinases essential for the maintenance of hemopoietic stem cells. Deciding RNA biology was more exciting, I then came back to study kinetic aspects of RNA splicing and nucleo-cytoplasmic transport in mammalian cells in the Dautry lab. 

I started my own group, now called “RNP and condensates”, in 2002 at IAL in Villejuif, to study cytoplasmic aspects of post-transcriptional regulation. We rapidly focussed on its cellular dimension, trying to understand the function of P-bodies and stress granules in this regulation using molecular and cellular biology approaches. In 2011 we moved to IBPS, at Sorbonne Universite, in Paris. 

In january 2025, I became director of the new research unit “Development, Adaptation and Ageing” at IBPS (19 teams, ~250 people).