CDD Post-doc in yeast evolutionary genomics (M/F)

About this position

The post-doc will contribute to the ANR project EDGES (Evolving genomes beyond species boundaries), which investigates how genomes acquire, assimilate and evolve large amounts of foreign and extra-self DNA (fsDNA) in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The post-doc will lead work on the natural uptake of environmental DNA, the reprogramming of mating to enable interspecies hybridisation, and the adaptive potential of fsDNA through experimental evolution. The post-doc will also collaborate on other projects currently ongoing in the group (

https://ircan.org/en/research/gianni-liti

).

The post-doc will perform both experimental and computational analyses to determine how foreign DNA enters yeast cells, how it is maintained, and what its phenotypic and evolutionary consequences are. Main tasks:

• Design and use of a synthetic mini linear yeast artificial chromosome with a fluorescent reporter to measure natural DNA uptake across genetic backgrounds and ecologically relevant conditions, including cell sorting, transcriptomics and GWAS-based mapping of the genetic determinants of natural competence

• Engineering of a synthetic mating system to overcome prezygotic barriers and enable hybridisation and cytoduction between S. cerevisiae and distant non-Saccharomyces species, monitored at the single-cell level by fluorescence and time-lapse microscopy

• Adaptive laboratory evolution of strains carrying foreign or extra-self DNA under stress (e.g. high temperature, osmotic stress), with long-read Nanopore sequencing to follow fsDNA dynamics

• Phenotyping across the yeast life cycle (growth, mating, sporulation, quiescence, ageing) and testing of reproductive isolation between evolved and ancestral lineages

• Multi-omics characterisation (long-read sequencing, chromatin conformation capture, transcriptomics, proteomics) of evolved clones, in collaboration with the consortium partners (Sorbonne Université and Institut Pasteur)

The postdoctoral fellow will be assigned to Dr Gianni LITI's team "Population genomics and complex traits". The team is one of the founding teams of IRCAN and is located at the Faculty of Medicine of Nice. The team has all the necessary equipment for yeast genetics and genomics experiments and has access to state-of-the-art microscopy, cytometry and genomics facilities as well as computing and storage servers.

The work will be carried out within the EDGES consortium, in close collaboration with the teams of Gilles Fischer (Sorbonne Université) and Romain Koszul (Institut Pasteur).