Leonetti Paola

The participation in the INRA Sequencing and Annotation project and the publication in 2008 of the “Genome sequence of the metazoan plant-parasitic nematode Meloidogyne incognita” in Nature Biotechnology, was the starting point of my studies of phytoparasitic nematode-host plant interaction. These studies have been approached with biochemical-molecular extraction but openness towards new technologies for objectifying the impact of damage inflicted by pathogens on plants of agricultural interest (from a method of analysis in electron microscopy images described in New Phytologist in 2006 to the more recent use of machine learning approaches on images of control and virus infected leaves (New Phytologist (2021), DOI: 10.1111/nph.16932).
Other articles and reviews attest to the in-depth knowledge of topics ranging from “seed germination” to “seed technology”, from key molecules of pre-germinative metabolism to hormones (SA, JA) capable of inducing defence responses in plants exposed to attack by phytopathogenic nematodes, to the use of extracts/molecules with nematicidal activity for effective and sustainable control.
Studies on the three-plant-nematode-fungus interaction were extended, methylation studies were carried out on model organisms (Medicago truncatula) and economically attractive Medicago sativa extended to the effects on the up- or down-regulation of genes related to several pathways in Solanum Lycopersicum L. or in other crops such as legumes. On the local varieties of the latter, supported by a PSR project for which we were IPSP referents, we set up research activities aimed at studying biodiversity, with particular attention to the mechanisms of permissiveness to viral infections as well as to the attack of phytoparasitic nematodes and other interesting potentials in the field of RNA biology (miRNA, sRNA, va-siRNA).