Master's 2 internship : Neuroepigenetic

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

Work environment, missions and activities

The Joint Research Unit for Reproductive Biology, Epigenetics, Environment, and Development (UMR BREED), comprising approximately 80 people, aims to study the impact of the environment on embryonic and fetal development in mammals and the long-term consequences of early disturbances to this environment. The unit consists of three research teams and a research support team. You will be welcomed into the PROGENIE team.

The HAPPYSMELLING ANR project (https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-22-CE20-0036) investigates the influence of the maternal context on in utero olfactory learning and its consequences on the socio-emotional behaviors of offspring from birth to juvenile age in male and female mice. For that, pregnant mice were fed or not during the last third of gestation with a synthetic odorant compound introduced into the bottle in association or not with a sugar reward in order to generate a positive conditioning throughout gestation. Four maternal groups, odorized or not, reinforced or not were produced and behaviorally monitored from birth to the juvenile age. The olfactory bulbs and prefrontal cortex of the offspring were collected at birth and weaning and DNA/RNA were extracted. From these samples, we aim to analyze the genome-wide methylation and hydroxymethylation at both ages by Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) on DNA templates oxidized or not to study the epigenetic consequences of maternal enrichment on these targeted brain regions.

Activities the student will be in charge of :

- Depending on the project's progress, the student will produce RRBS and ox-RRBS libraries to send to sequencing and/or he/she will analyze data resulting from the sequencing of RRBS and ox-RRBS libraries to identify differentially methylated and/or hydroxymethylated DNA positions or regions at both ages associated with odor and/or sugar supplementation.

-  Performing differential methylation analysis to analyze the evolution of the methylation/hydroxymethylation landscapes between birth and weaning, to characterize the effects of maternal enrichment on genome plasticity.

- Performing integration analyses with transcriptomic data to detect transcripts

whose level is the most correlated with methylation patterns.

Training and skills

• Knowledge of genetics, genomics, and statistics; background in biology

interpretation

• Strong fluency in using the statistical software R (data analysis and processing)

• Motivation and interest for the project objectives

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

 

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter