Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD BioMed Central
Résumé : International audience
Background: Myosin II (or Myosin Heavy Chain II, MHCII) is a family of molecular motors involved in the contractile activity of animal muscle cells but also in various other cellular processes in non-muscle cells. Previous phylogenetic analyses of bilaterian MHCII genes identified two main clades associated respectively with smooth/non-muscle cells (MHCIIa) and striated muscle cells (MHCIIb). Muscle cells are generally thought to have originated only once in ancient animal history, and decisive insights about their early evolution are expected to come from expression studies of Myosin II genes in the two non-bilaterian phyla that possess muscles, the Cnidaria and Ctenophora. Results: We have uncovered three MHCII paralogues in the ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the MHCIIa /MHCIIb duplication is more ancient than the divergence between extant metazoan lineages. The ctenophore MHCIIa gene (PpiMHCIIa) has an expression pattern akin to that of ``stem cell markers'' (Piwi, Vasa...) and is expressed in proliferating cells. We identified two MHCIIb genes that originated from a ctenophore-specific duplication. PpiMHCIIb1 represents the exclusively muscular form of myosin II in ctenophore, while PpiMHCIIb2 is expressed in non-muscle cells of various types. In parallel, our phalloidin staining and TEM observations highlight the structural complexity of ctenophore musculature and emphasize the experimental interest of the ctenophore tentacle root, in which myogenesis is spatially ordered and strikingly similar to striated muscle formation in vertebrates. Conclusion: MHCIIa expression in putative stem cells/proliferating cells probably represents an ancestral trait, while specific involvement of some MHCIIa genes in smooth muscle fibres is a uniquely derived feature of the vertebrates. That one ctenophore MHCIIb paralogue (PpiMHCIIb2) has retained MHCIIa-like expression features furthermore suggests that muscular expression of the other paralogue, PpiMHCIIb1, was the result of neofunctionalisation within the ctenophore lineage, making independent origin of ctenophore muscle cells a likely option.
ISSN: 1471-2148

hal-01544486
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01544486
DOI : 10.1186/1471-2148-12-107

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley-VCH Verlag
Résumé : International audience
Proteomic profiling plays a decisive role in the elucidation of molecular signatures representative of a specific clinical context. MuStem cell-based therapy represents a promising approach for clinical applications to cure Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). To expand our previous studies collected in the clinically relevant DMD animal model, we decided to investigate the skeletal muscle proteome four months after systemic delivery of allogenic MuStem cells. Quantitative proteomics with isotope-coded protein labelling (ICPL) was used to compile quantitative changes in the protein expression profiles of muscle in transplanted Golden Retriever Muscular Dystrophy (GRMD) dogs as compared to GRMD dogs. A total of 492 proteins were quantified, including 25 that were overrepresented and 46 that were underrepresented after MuStem cell transplantation. Interestingly, this study demonstrates that somatic stem cell therapy impacts on the structural integrity of the muscle fascicle by acting on fibres and its connections with the extracellular matrix. We also show that cell infusion promotes protective mechanisms against oxidative stress and favours the initial phase of muscle repair. This study allows us to identify putative candidates for tissue markers that might be of great value in objectively exploring the clinical benefits resulting from our cell-based therapy for DMD.
ISSN: 1615-9853

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
hal-01332030
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01332030
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01332030/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01332030/file/Quantitative%20proteome%20profiling%20of%20dystrophic%20dog%20skeletal%20muscle_accepted.pdf
DOI : 10.1002/pmic.201600002

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
The main biological function of reaction wood is to act as “muscle” for trees, enabling them to control their posture and right stems when they are permanently disturbed from their set-point inclination by gravity or winds. The key property to achieve this function is the development of high mechanical stress during the formation of reaction wood cells, called “maturation strains”. Moreover, this function is basically performed through the asymmetric formation of wood (in quantity or quality) around the tree circumference. This asymmetry enables stems to bend upward or to compensate for the downward bending induced by gravity, as an asymmetric force associated to maturation strains creates a bending moment (i.e. one side of the stem “pulls” the other one). We will discuss the traits (cross sectional size and shape, wood features as G fibers or microfibril angle, eccentric growth even in usual or extreme cases as buttresses, total biomass growth and height of center of mass, stem lean and set-point angle) involved to understand how the posture control works. We will give simple formulas to estimate a “muscle efficiency” from biomechanical modeling. We will give practical methods to estimate all the involved traits, especially maturation strains from direct and indirect measurements, in peripheral functional wood or by retrospective dendrochronological analysis. Then, we will illustrate how tree stem tropisms and especially gravitropism, widely studied by physiologists, are key processes in natural ecosystems, through practical examples from tropical rainforest tree communities and regeneration of European mixed beech forests. Using the previous definition of postural control efficiency, we will show that the cross section size is rapidly a limiting factor, opposing the extreme strategies of flexible small stems, which bend easily but also right themselves quickly, to stiff big stems. Lastly, as wood in living trees ensures general storage, defence, vascular and skeletal functions, we will ask general questions about synergies and trade-offs between posture control and other functions.
Botany 2014 : new frontiers in botany
Boise, United States

hal-01627031
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01627031

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Resolving the early diversification of animal lineages has proven difficult, even using genome-scale datasets. Several phylogenomic studies have supported the classical scenario in which sponges (Porifera) are the sister group to all other animals (''Porifera-sister''3 hypothesis), consistent with a single origin of the gut, nerve cells, and muscle cells in the stem lineage of eumetazoans (bilaterians + ctenophores + cnidarians). In contrast, several other studies have recovered an alternative topology in which ctenophores are the sister group to all other animals (including sponges). The ``Ctenophora-sister'' hypothesis implies that eumetazoan-specific traits, such as neurons and muscle cells, either evolved once along the metazoan stem lineage and were then lost in sponges and placozoans or evolved at least twice independently in Ctenophora and in Cnidaria + Bilateria. Here, we report on our reconstruction of deep metazoan relationships using a 1,719-gene dataset with dense taxonomic sampling of non-bilaterian animals that was assembled using a semi-automated procedure, designed to reduce known error sources. Our dataset outperforms previous metazoan gene superalignments in terms of data quality and quantity. Analyses with a best-fitting site-heterogeneous evolutionary model provide strong statistical support for placing sponges as the sister-group to all other metazoans, with ctenophores emerging as the second-earliest branching animal lineage. Only those methodological settings that exacerbated long-branch attraction artifacts yielded Ctenophora-sister. These results show that methodological issues must be carefully addressed to tackle difficult phylogenetic questions and pave the road to a better understanding of how fundamental features of animal body plans have emerged.
ISSN: 0960-9822

hal-01681528
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01681528
DOI : 10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.031

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Résumé : International audience
The main biological function of reaction wood is to act as " muscle " for trees, enabling them to control their posture. The key property to achieve this function is the development of high mechanical stress during the formation of reaction wood cells, called " maturation strains ". Actually, reaction wood formation is basically the asymmetric formation of wood around the tree circumference, with higher maturation strains on the side where reaction wood is formed than on the opposite side. This asymmetry enables stems to bend upward or to compensate for the downward bending induced by gravity. At the cross section level, the performance in this biological function is linked not only to the magnitude of this asymmetry but also to an effect of the cross-sectional size (diameter) of the stem. Eccentric growth and variations in wood mechanical stiffness are second order effects that can modify this performance. Differences in maturation strains between reaction and non-reaction woods are related to their specific cell wall structure and composition. The swelling of the cell wall matrix during maturation and the effect of microfibril angle explain the differences in maturation strains between normal and compression wood. However, this mechanism fails in explaining the high maturation shrinkage of tension wood, and several hypotheses at the molecular levels are still under debate. How trees perceive their gravitational disequilibrium is also an open question for physiologists. Integrative biomechanical modelling (from the polymer level to the cell wall, cross section and whole tree levels) enables defining key variables that explain the performance of reaction wood as a system that insures the stem motricity. Maturation strains can be precisely measured only in recently formed wood at the tree surface, but their changes during the whole tree life can also be estimated by retrospective dendrochronological analysis through structural markers of reaction wood. Lastly, wood in living trees ensures general storage, defence, vascular and skeletal functions, that ask general questions about synergies and trade-offs as the structural characteristics of reaction wood can affect all these functions.
The Biology of Reaction Wood

ISBN : 978-3-642-10813-6
hal-01452085
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01452085
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01452085/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01452085/file/Chap_Gril_al_Biomechanical_action_biological_functions_2014.pdf