Home page / Fellows & Labs / Fellows & Alumni / Caroline Monteil
France
Country of destination:United Kingdom
In this project, I aim to shed light into the role environmental reservoirs play in the emergence of Pseudomonas syringae crop pathogens by using a comparative functional genomics approach. I m currently analysing the genetic variation in the genome of hundreds of isolates from diverse habitats to infer population structure, gene flow and the genes associated with adaptation to P. syringae niches. I’m addressing these questions in the laboratory of Pr. S.K. Sheppard in the College of Medicine of Swansea University UK. Findings from this project will contribute to develop and improve targeted strategies for crop protection by identifying genetic markers associated with pathogen emergence.
I graduated with a master degree in microbial ecology from Montpellier University (France) in 2008. I pursued with a PhD in integrative biology of plant pathogens that I defended in 2011 at the University of Avignon in France. The research projects I developed at INRA were dedicated to the improvement of crop protection and aimed to understand how bacterial pathogens emerge, adapt to crop hosts and disseminate. For several years, I have been engaged in research on the ecology and evolution of the plant pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae causing disease on a wide variety of crop plants. Aware of the potentialities genomics can offer to my field of research, I joined the Vinatzer’s lab in Virginia Tech (USA) in 2012 to learn how to use genomes for elucidating population structure and revealing mechanisms involved in pathogenesis. Thanks to an AgreenSkills fellowship, I joined the Sheppard’s lab in Swansea University (UK) later, to apply cutting edges approaches developed in clinical microbiology to plant pathology, notably in phylogenomics, populations genomics and association mapping. Among other results, my work demonstrated the role of the environment into emergence, crop adaptation and dissemination of Pseudomonas syringae pathogens. From these experiences, I developed a previous expertise in interdisciplinary research by combining environmental sciences, environmental microbiology, population genomics, molecular biology, statistics and bioinformatics. I currently use this expertise for addressing issues in ecology and evolution of bacteria with singular functions such as pathogenesis, ice nucleation activity, and more recently magnetotaxis, and their role in ecosystem functioning.
Monteil CL, Menguy N, Prévéral S, Warren A, Pignol D, Lefèvre CT., 2018. Accumulation and dissolution of magnetite crystals in a magnetically responsive ciliate. Appl Environ Microbiol., 84(8). Doi: 10.1128/AEM.0286517.
Failor KC, Schmale DG, Vinatzer BA, Monteil CL., 2017. Ice nucleation active bacteria in precipitation are genetically diverse and nucleate ice by employing different mechanisms. ISME J; 11: 2740-2753.
Monteil CL, Yahara K, Studholme DJ, Mageiros L, Méric G, Swingle B, Morris CE, Vinatzer BA, Sheppard SK., 2016. Population-genomic insights into emergence, crop adaptation and dissemination of Pseudomonas syringae pathogens. Microbial Genomics, 2 (10). Doi: 10.1099/ mgen.0.000089.
Monteil CL, Bardin M, Morris CE., 2014. Features of air masses associated with the deposition of Pseudomonas syringae and Botrytis cinerea by rain and snowfall. ISME J., 8: 2290-2304.
Monteil CL, Cai R, Liu H, Mechan Llontop ME, Leman S, Studholme DJ, et al., 2013. Nonagricultural reservoirs contribute to emergence and evolution of Pseudomonas syringae crop pathogens. New Phytol., 199: 800-811.
2012 Travel Grant from Department of Plant Health and Environment, France
2010 Jean & Marie-Louise DUFRENOY Research Grant from the French Academy of Agriculture
2008 Fellowship for 3 years of Ph.D. plus 3 years of postdoc from INRA, Department of Plant Health and Environment, France
Phone: +33(0)1 42 75 95 36 / +33(0)1 42 75 96 12 Email: contact@agreenskills.eu AgreenSkills (c) (2012) Legals
