Massimiliano Corso

French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) | INRAE · Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin

Elucidating the mechanisms that control seed development, metabolism, and physiology is a fundamental issue in biology. Michel Caboche had long been a catalyst for seed biology research in France up until his untimely passing away last year. To honour his memory, we have updated a review written under his coordination in 2010 entitled "Arabidopsis...

Cadmium (Cd) accumulation is highly variable among Arabidopsis halleri populations. To identify cell wall (CW) components that contribute to the contrasting Cd accumulation between PL22-H (Cd-hyperaccumulator) and I16-E (Cd-excluder), Cd absorption capacity of CW polysaccharides, CW mono- and poly- saccharides contents and CW glycan profiles were c...

Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] is an oilseed crop belonging to the Brassicaceae family that has attracted worldwide attention because of its agronomic and qualitative characteristics. This crop can adapt well to different environments and produce oil suitable for multiple bio-based uses. The most commonly measured and reported components of...

The identification of transcription factor (TF) target genes is central in biology. A popular approach is based on the location by pattern-matching of potential cis-regulatory elements (CREs). During the last few years, tools integrating next-generation sequencing data have been developed to improve the performances of pattern-matching. However, su...

Despite the essential role of Specialized Metabolites (SMs) in the interaction of plants with the environment, studying the ability of crop seeds to produce these protective compounds has been neglected. Furthermore, seeds produce a myriad of SMs providing an interesting model to investigate their diversity and plasticity. Camelina sativa gained a...

In many cases, the unprecedented availability of data provided by high-throughput sequencing has shifted the bottleneck from a data availability issue to a data interpretation issue, thus delaying the promised breakthroughs in genetics and precision medicine, for what concerns Human genetics, and phenotype prediction to improve plant adaptation to...

Lytic Polysaccharide Monooxygenases (LPMOs) are powerful redox enzymes able to oxidatively cleave recalcitrant polysaccharides. Widely conserved across biological kingdoms, LPMOs of the AA9 family are deployed by phytopathogens to deconstruct cellulose polymers. In response, plants have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to sense cell wall damage and...

Lytic Polysaccharide Monooxygenases (LPMOs) are powerful redox enzymes able to oxidatively cleave cellulose polymers. Widely conserved across biological kingdoms, LPMOs of the AA9 family are deployed by phytopathogens during necrotrophic attack of plant cell wall. In response, plants have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to sense cell wall damage a...

Seeds produce a myriad of Specialized Metabolites (SMs). Nevertheless, despite the essential role of SMs in the interaction of plants with their environment, studying the ability of crop seeds to produce these protective compounds has been neglected. Camelina is an oilseed crop, whose seeds are characterized by high oil content and a unique composi...

Metallophytes constitute powerful models for the study of metal homeostasis, adaptation to extreme environments and the evolution of naturally selected traits. Arabidopsis halleri is a pseudometallophyte which shows constitutive zinc/cadmium (Zn/Cd) tolerance and Zn hyperaccumulation but high intraspecific variability in Cd accumulation. To examine...

Seed quality is considered as a major agricultural issue with respect to food and non-food uses, biodiversity preservation and environmental protection. Germination efficiency and seed vigor are key factors to ensure correct plant production and yield. Germination can be limited by seed dormancy and/or suboptimal environmental conditions. In additi...

Pseudometallophytes are commonly used to study the evolution of metal tolerance and accumulation traits in plants. Within the Arabidopsis genus, the adaptation of Arabidopsis halleri to metalliferous soils has been widely studied, which is not the case for the closely related species Arabidopsis arenosa. We performed an in‐depth physiological compa...

Trace metal elements are essential for plant growth but become toxic at high concentrations, while some non-essential elements, such as Cd and As, show toxicity even in traces. Thus, metal homeostasis is tightly regulated in plants. Plant species colonising metalliferous soils have evolved mechanisms to hypertolerate metals and, in rare cases, can...

Plants produce a huge diversity of specialized metabolites (SM) throughout their life cycle that play important physiological and ecological functions. SM can protect plants and seeds against diseases, predators, and abiotic stresses, or support their interactions with beneficial or symbiotic organisms. They also have strong impacts on human nutrit...

The mechanisms underlying the response and adaptation of plants to excess of trace elements are not fully described. Here, we analyzed the importance of protein lysine methylation for plants to cope with cadmium. We analyzed the effect of cadmium on lysine‐methylated proteins and protein lysine methyltransferases (KMTs) in two cadmium‐sensitive spe...

The mechanisms underlying the response and adaptation of plants to excess of trace elements are not fully described. Here, we analyzed the importance of protein lysine methylation for plants to cope with cadmium. We analyzed the effect of cadmium on lysine-methylated proteins and protein lysine methyltransferases (KMTs) in three Arabidopsis species...

Trace Metal Elements (TME) hyperaccumulation and hypertolerance are highly variable traits in pseudo-metallophytes. In this study we compared the impact of high Cd or Zn doses on the photosynthetic apparatus of two Arabidopsis arenosa and Arabidopsis halleri pseudo-metallophytes growing on the same contaminated site in the south of Poland. Plants w...

The molecular analysis of metal hyperaccumulation in species such as Arabidopsis halleri offers the chance to gain insights into metal homeostasis and into the evolution of adaptation to extreme habitats. A prerequisite of metal hyperaccumulation is metal hypertolerance. Genetic analysis of a backcross population derived from A. lyrata x A. halleri...

Significance Given the lack of a nervous system in plants, signaling molecules, such as Ca ²⁺ , are of vital importance for perceiving environmental stimuli. However, little information on the genes that control this network is available. Our demonstration that Arabidopsis CCX2, localized to the endoplasmic reticulum, modulates osmotic stress respo...

Zinc (Zn) hyperaccumulation and hypertolerance are highly variable traits in Arabidopsis halleri. Metallicolous populations have evolved from nearby nonmetallicolous populations in multiple independent adaptation events. To determine whether these events resulted in similar or divergent adaptive strategies to high soil Zn concentrations, we compare...

While cadmium (Cd) tolerance is a constitutive trait in the Arabidopsis halleri species, Cd accumulation is highly variable. Recent adaptation to anthropogenic metal stress has occurred independently within the genetic units of A. halleri and the evolution of different mechanisms involved in Cd tolerance and accumulation has been suggested. To gain...

Iron chlorosis is a serious deficiency that affects orchards and vineyards reducing quality and yield production. Chlorotic plants show abnormal photosynthesis and yellowing shoots. In grapevine iron uptake and homeostasis are most likely controlled by a mechanism known as “Strategy I”, characteristic of non-graminaceous plants and based on a syste...

Most of the world’s wine-producing regions are subjected to seasonal drought,and,in the light of the dramatic climate-change events occurring in recent years, the selection of resistant rootstocks is becoming a crucial factor for the development of sustainable agricultural models to ensure optimal grape berry development and ripening. In this study...

Investigation of genetic determinants of Cd tolerance in the Zn/Cd hyperaccumulator Arabidopsis halleri allowed the identification of the vacuolar Ca2+/H+ exchanger encoding CAX1 gene. CAX1 was proposed to interfere with the positive feedback loop between Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production and Cd-induced cytosolic Ca2+ spikes, especially at l...

Winter pears initiate ripening following exposure to room temperature (RT, 20°C), after a chilling period. The number of days required for pear fruit to fully ripen varies mainly depending on cultivar and duration of low temperature storage. However, the longer the time in cold storage, the faster the rate of post-storage ripening. This study aimed...

In modern viticulture, grafting commercial grapevine varieties on interspecific rootstocks is a common practice required for conferring resistance to many biotic and abiotic stresses. Nevertheless, the use of rootstocks to gain these essential traits is also known to impact grape berry development and quality, although the underlying mechanisms are...

In light of ongoing climate changes in wine-growing regions, the selection of drought-tolerant rootstocks is becoming a crucial factor for developing a sustainable viticulture. In this study, M4, a new rootstock genotype that shows tolerance to drought, was compared from a genomic and transcriptomic point of view with the less drought-tolerant geno...

WRKY proteins are a class of transcription factors (TFs) involved in the regulation of various physiological processes, including the plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Recent studies in Arabidopsis have revealed that some WRKY TFs interact with a class of proteins designed as VQ proteins because of their typical conserved motif (FxxxVQ...

Most of the world’s wine-producing regions are subjected to seasonal drought,and,in the light of the dramatic climate-change events occurring in recent years, the selection of resistant rootstocks is becoming a crucial factor for the development of sustainable agricultural models to ensure optimal grape berry development and ripening. In this study...

Amongst 60 species within the Vitis genus, Vitis vinifera L. is the mostly used species for the production of wine and distilled liquors. Before the devastation of European viticulture caused by the introduction of phylloxera from North America, varieties of V. vinifera used commercially for wine production in Europe were traditionally grown on the...

Alternative splicing (AS) significantly enhances transcriptome complexity. It is differentially regulated in a wide variety of cell types and plays a role in several cellular processes. Here we describe a detailed survey of alternative splicing in grape based on 124 SOLiD RNAseq analyses from different tissues, stress conditions and genotypes. We u...

Grapevine represents one of the major economic crop species on a worldwide scale, with a world production approaching 70 million of tons and a harvest area of over 7 million hectares. Amongst the 60 species within the Vitis genus, Vitis vinifera L. is the mostly used for the production of wine and distilled liquors. Before the devastation of Europe...

Background Auxins act as repressors of ripening inception in grape (véraison), while ethylene and abscisic acid (ABA) play a positive role as inducers of the syndrome. Despite the increasing amount of information made available on this topic, the complex network of interactions among these hormones remains elusive. In order to shed light on these a...