Cécile Ben

École Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse | INP ENSAT · Functional Ecology & Environment Lab (EcoLab UMR 5245 CNRS/INPT/UPS)

Resistance mechanisms to Verticillium wilt are well-studied in tomato, cotton, and Arabidopsis, but much less in legume plants. Because legume plants establish nitrogen-fixing symbioses in their roots, resistance to root-attacking pathogens merits particular attention. The interaction between the soil-borne pathogen Verticillium alfalfae and the mo...

The explosive growth of genomic data provides an opportunity to make increased use of sequence variations for phenotype prediction. We have developed a prediction machine for quantitative phenotypes (WhoGEM) that overcomes some of the bottlenecks limiting the current methods. We demonstrated its performance by predicting quantitative disease resist...

Global warming is expected to have a direct impact on plant disease patterns in agro-eco-systems. However, few analyses report the effect of moderate temperature increase on disease severity due to soil-borne pathogens. For legumes, modifications of root plant-microbe interactions either mutualistic or pathogenic due to climate change may have dram...

Verticillium wilt is a major threat to many crops, among them alfalfa (Medicago sativa). The model plant Medicago truncatula, a close relative of alfalfa was used to study the genetic control of resistance towards a new Verticillium alfalfae isolate. The accidental introduction of pathogen strains through global trade is a threat to crop production...

The infection of the model legume Medicago truncatula with Ralstonia solanacearum GMI1000 gives rise to bacterial wilt disease via colonisation of roots. The root and leaf responses to early infection (1 and 3 days post infection) were characterised to investigate the molecular mechanisms of plant resistance or susceptibility. A proteomics approach...

Wilt disease affects alfalfa plants (Med-icago sativa) by disrupting their vascular tissues which limits water and nutrient uptakes leading to yield reduction. Field surveys conducted in 2017 in the oases of Southern Tunisia showed serious wilting symptoms in alfalfa, associated with leaves yellowing and root rotting. This study aims to identify th...

Demand response (DR) programs currently cover about 2% of the average annual global demand, which is far from contributing to the International Energy Agency's "Net Zero by 2050" roadmap's 20% target. While aggre-gation of many small flexible loads such as individual households can help reaching this target, increasing the participation of industri...

The Kazakhstan-Siberia Network for Spring Wheat Improvement (KASIB) was established in 2000, forming a collaboration between breeding and research programs through biannual yield trials. A core set of 142 genotypes from 15 breeding programs was selected, genotyped for 81 DNA functional markers and phenotyped for 10 agronomic traits at three sites i...

Anthracnose, induced by Colletotrichum lupini, significantly threatens the white lupin industry, primarily originating from infections in asymptomatic seeds. This study evaluated the aggressiveness of six C. lupini strains reisolated from symptomatic pods in the same field in 2021. The assessment targeted Russian cultivars ('Aly Parus,' 'Michurinsk...

Anthracnose stands as the primary obstacle to lupin cultivation, impeding development despite the considerable agronomic, ecological, and economic potential of such legume crops. This review explores recent efforts to unravel the complexities of anthracnose in domesticated lupins, focusing on both the plant perspective and the causative pathogenic...

Barley is a resilient crop with high nutritional value and adaptability, making it a promising candidate for phytoremediation and space agriculture. The study presents a comprehensive multi-omics analysis of the impact of ionising radiation (IR) on barley seedlings, intending to identify candidate pathways for creating radiation-resilient barley pl...

Oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid increasing oil oxidative stability. High content of oleic acid is thus a valuable trait in oilseed crops. Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) normally accumulates linoleic acid as a major fatty acid, but a mutant expressing a high oleic phenotype form was previously obtained by chemical mutagenesis and mapped...

Anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum lupini is an essential problem limiting lupine cultivation. In this study, we analyzed metabolic profiles of two white lupin cultivars with different susceptibility to primary infection caused by two C. lupini strains isolated from a single Russian field to reveal key metabolites and metabolic pathways involved...

Cadmium (Cd) is a non-essential metal highly toxic to plants, animals, and humans. To understand the heritability of Cd tolerance in Medicago truncatula, a QTL analysis was performed using a population of 147 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) in the F8 generation at seedling stage. The RILs and parental lines were grown for 6 days under exposure to ±...

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), the third largest produced pulse worldwide, is primarily grown on marginal soils often characterized by a phosphorus (P)-deficiency that severely hampers yields. The objectives of the study are to investigate the relationships between the P-acquisition, P-use efficiency (PUE) and the agronomical performances towards t...

Oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid increasing oil oxidative stability. High content of oleic acid is thus a valuable trait in oilseed crops. Sunflower ( Helianthus annuus L.) normally accumulates linoleic acid as a major fatty acid, but a mutant expressing a high oleic phenotype form was previously obtained by chemical mutagenesis and mappe...

Tocopherols are the natural lipophilic antioxidants possessing vitamin E activity. The tocopherol complex in plants includes four different forms, namely, α-tocopherol, β-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol, and δ-tocopherol. Importantly, vitamin E activity decreases from α- to δ-tocopherol, while in vitro antioxidant activity in contrast increases in the row...

Tocopherols and oleic acid are components of sunflower oil that protect it against thermooxidation. Tocopherol composition and oleic acid content are under strong genetic control in plants. Thus it is possible to improve conventional breeding by introducing genetic markers of these traits in order to obtain new varieties with altered oil compositio...

Tocopherols are antioxidants that preserve oil lipids against oxidation and serve as a natural source of vitamin E in the human diet. Compared with other major oilseeds like rapeseed and soybean, sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) exhibits low phenotypic diversity of tocopherol composition, both in wild and cultivated accessions from germplasm collec...

Zero hunger and good health could be realized by 2030 through effective conservation, characterization and utilization of germplasm resources ¹ . So far, few chickpea ( Cicer arietinum ) germplasm accessions have been characterized at the genome sequence level ² . Here we present a detailed map of variation in 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessio...

The whole-genomes shotgun sequences of 6 bacterial biocontrol agents isolated from Medicago truncatula and Solanum lycopersicum collected in the North of Tunisia are presented in this study. The genome sequences supplement the existing genomics resources and give us an insight into the biodiversity of bacteria associated with plants and prospect ke...

Guar gum, a polysaccharide derived from guar seeds, is widely used in a variety of industrial applications, including oil and gas production. Although guar is mostly propagated in India, interest in guar as a new industrial legume crop is increasing worldwide, demanding the development of effective tools for marker-assisted selection. In this paper...

Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) is an annual legume crop native to India and Pakistan. Seeds of the plant serve as a source of galactomannan polysaccharide (guar gum) used in the food industry as a stabilizer (E412) and as a gelling agent in oil and gas fracturing fluids. There were several attempts to introduce this crop to countries of...

Medicago truncatula genotypes differing in cadmium susceptibility were used to test mineral, reserve mobilization, oxidative disorders , defense pathways and stress responses in embryos. Cadmium caused alteration of mineral elements, carbohydrate and free amino acid accumulations. Carbohydrates were determining to susceptible lines growth in contro...

Botrytis cinerea is one of the most important postharvest fungal pathogens causing significant losses in fresh fruits, vegetables and ornamentals. Synthetic fungicides are primarily used to control postharvest decay loss, but due to their hazardous use the recent trend is shifting toward safer and more eco-friendly alternatives. The use of antagoni...

Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.) is becoming a popular industrial crop in response to industry demand for the guar gum extracted from seeds’ endosperm. Breeding efforts of new guar varieties would greatly benefit from genomic resources developed for marker assisted selection (MAS) purposes. We have undertaken the first steps to establish a...

Lotus japonicus is a well-studied nodulating legume and a model organism for the investigation of plant-microbe interactions. The majority of legume transcriptome studies have focused on interactions with compatible symbionts, whereas responses to non-adapted rhizobia and pathogenic bacteria have not been well-characterized. In this study, we first...

Fitness traits that determine the reproductive ability of individuals and the persistence of populations are affected by drought stress. Medicago truncatula that commonly encounters drought stress in its natural area, and for which large natural diversity and genetic tools are available, is a suitable species to investigate genetic determinism of f...

Plant resistance mechanisms to insect herbivory can potentially be bred into crops as an important strategy for integrated pest management. Medicago truncatula ecotypes inoculated with the rhizobium Ensifer medicae (Sinorhizobium medica) WSM419 were screened for resistance to herbivory by caterpillars of the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua, throug...

Defense pathways and stress responses induced under Cd stress were illustrated in roots of hydroponically grown Medicago truncatula seedlings. Actually, the ascorbate-glutathione and antioxidative system, secondary metabolism events including peroxidases, phenolic compounds, and lignification launching, and developmental modifications were describe...

Land salinity is one of the major abiotic constraints that negatively affects crop production worldwide. The Medicago genus, mostly composed by annual species, is of real interest in improving soil fertility and maintaining pastures for livestock. We assessed adaptive traits for salt tolerance in 40 contrasted populations belonging to 6 Medicago sp...

Legumes are one of the most important crop families with high nutritional value thanks to their nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with rhizobia. However, they are prone to many diseases which reduce yields. The interaction between the model legume Medicago truncatula (Mt) and the root pathogen Verticillium alfalfae (Va) is studied to investigate the geneti...

Disease resistance conditioned by multiple genes of small effects is one of the most durable resistance in crop breeding. The interaction between the legume model plant Medicago truncatula (Mt) and the root pathogen Verticillium alfalfae (Va) is studied to investigate the genetic mechanisms involved in quantitative disease resistance (QDR) against...

Many adaptive events in natural populations, as well as response to artificial selection, are caused by polygenic action. Under selective pressure, the adaptive traits can quickly respond via small allele frequency shifts spread across numerous loci. We hypothesize that a large proportion of current phenotypic variation between individuals may be b...

Hypocotyl elongation in the dark is a crucial process to ensure seedling emergence. It relies both on the cell number and cell length. The contribution of these two factors to the maximal hypocotyl length and the impact of environmental conditions on this contribution are not known. This is surprising considering the agronomic and economical import...

Environmental changes challenge plants and drive adaptation to new conditions, suggesting that natural biodiversity may be a source of adaptive alleles acting through phenotypic plasticity and/or micro-evolution. Crosses between accessions differing for a given trait have been the most common way to disentangle genetic and environmental components....

Background Legume roots show a remarkable plasticity to adapt their architecture to biotic and abiotic constraints, including symbiotic interactions. However, global analysis of miRNA regulation in roots is limited, and a global view of the evolution of miRNA-mediated diversification in different ecotypes is lacking. Results In the model legume Me...

Oxidative disorders were triggered in the presence of Cd toxicity in early seedling growth of six Medicago truncatula genotypes. Interactions between root growth inhibition, cadmium uptake, as well as the occurrence of oxidative injury suggest differential responses of the genotypes, with susceptible or tolerant accessions. ROS enhancement was obse...

Salinity is one of the major stresses that limits crop production worldwide and affects most physiological activities in plants. In order to study the genetic control of salt stress in the model legume Medicago truncatula Gaertn., an experiment was undertaken to determine the genetic variability and to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) contro...

Verticillium albo-atrum is responsible for considerable yield losses in many economically important crops, among them alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Using Medicago truncatula as a model for studying resistance and susceptibility to V. albo-atrum, previous work has identified genetic variability and major resistance quantitative trait loci (QTLs) to Ver...

Anthropogenic activity has contributed widely to soil pollution with Cadmium (Cd), a highly toxic heavy metal. Our study aims at characterizing the biodiversity of the response to this pollutant in the model legume Medicago truncatula. Thirty lines of M. truncatula originating from contrasted pedoclimatic regions around the Mediterranean sea were...

Anthropogenic activity has contributed widely to soil pollution with Cadmium (Cd), a highly toxic heavy metal. Our study aims at characterizing the biodiversity of the response to this pollutant in the model legume Medicago truncatula. Thirty lines of M. truncatula originating from contrasted pedoclimatic regions around the Mediterranean sea were...

Ralstonia solanacearum is a major soilborne pathogen that attacks > 200 plant species, including major crops. To characterize Mt QRRS 1 , a major quantitative trait locus ( QTL ) for resistance towards this bacterium in the model legume Medicago truncatula , genetic and functional approaches were combined. QTL analyses together with disease scoring...

Verticillium wilt caused by Verticillium albo-atrum and Verticillium dahliae is responsible for yield losses in many economically important crops. The capacity of pathogenic fungi to adapt to new host plants is a well-known threat to the durability of existing resistant crop varieties. In the present work 25 Medicago truncatula genotypes from a cor...

Verticillium wilt is a major threat to alfalfa (Medicago sativa) and many other crops. The model legume Medicago truncatula was used as a host for studying resistance and susceptibility to Verticillium albo-atrum. In addition to presenting well-established genetic resources, this wild plant species enables to investigate biodiversity of the respons...

Elevated temperature and humidity are major environmental factors limiting crop yield and distribution. An understanding of the mechanisms underlying plant tolerance to high temperature and humidity may facilitate the development of cultivars adaptable to warm or humid regions. Under conditions of 90% humidity and 35 °C, the thermotolerant plant Po...

Medicago truncatula is used as a model plant for exploring the genetic and molecular determinants of nitrogen (N) nutrition in legumes. In this study, our aim was to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling plant N nutrition using a simple framework of carbon/N plant functioning stemming from crop physiology. This framework was based on eff...

Medicago truncatula is a model for investigating legume genetics, including the genetics and evolution of legume-rhizobia symbiosis. We used whole-genome sequence data to identify and characterize sequence polymorphisms and linkage disequilibrium (LD) in a diverse collection of 26 M. truncatula accessions. Our analyses reveal that M. truncatula har...

Plant resistance to pathogens is commonly associated with a hypersensitive response (HR), but the degree to which the HR is responsible for incompatibility is subject to debate. Resistance to aphids is likely to share features with resistance to pathogens but is less well understood. Here, we report effective resistance to the pea aphid Acyrthosiph...

Chez les végétaux supérieurs, l’embryogenèse est une phase clé du développement au cours de laquelle l’embryon établit les principales structures qui formeront la future plante et synthétise et accumule des réserves définissant le rendement et la qualité nutritionnelle des graines. La compréhension des évènements moléculaires et physiologiques mena...

To gain information concerning cell functions and activities during sunflower embryogenesis, an expressed sequence tag (EST) approach was used to analyse gene expression in the early stages of sunflower embryos development. Confocal microscopy observations of whole-mounted embryos allowed us to identify precisely the major steps of the zygotic embr...

We have developed a 1-step procedure for cloning multiple bands obtained through cDNA-amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) experiments. This protocol enables us to clone differential and nondifferential transcript-derived fragments (TDFs) in the same experiment. It consists of a mass cloning of cDNA-AFLP amplification products, identificat...