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Early research on marine fungi was mostly descriptive, with an emphasis on their diversity and taxonomy, especially of those collected at rocky shores on seaweeds and driftwood. Subsequently, further substrata (e.g. salt marsh grasses, marine animals, seagrasses, sea foam, seawater, sediment) and habitats (coral reefs, deep-sea, hydrothermal vents, mangroves, sandy beaches, salt marshes) were explored for marine fungi. In parallel, research areas have broadened from micro-morphology to ultrastructure, ecophysiology, molecular phylogenetics, biogeography, biodeterioration, biodegradation, bioprospecting, genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. Although marine fungi only constitute a small fraction of the global mycota, new species of marine fungi continue to be described from new hosts/substrata of unexplored locations/habitats, and novel bioactive metabolites have been discovered in the last two decades, warranting a greater collaborative research effort. Marine fungi of Africa, the Americas and Australasia are under-explored, while marine Chytridiomycota and allied taxa, fungi associated with marine animals, the functional roles of fungi in the sea, and the impacts of climate change on marine fungi are some of the topics needing more attention. In this article, currently active marine mycologists from different countries have written on the history and current state of marine fungal research in individual countries highlighting their strength in the subject, and this represents a first step towards a collaborative inter- and transdisciplinary research strategy.

Some fungi have been domesticated for food production, with genetic differentiation between populations from food and wild environments, and food populations often acquiring beneficial traits through horizontal gene transfers (HGTs). Studying their adaptation to human-made substrates is of fundamental and applied importance for understanding adaptation processes and for further strain improvement. We studied here the population structures and phenotypes of two distantly related Penicillium species used for dry-cured meat production, P. nalgiovense, the most common species in the dry-cured meat food industry, and P. salamii, used locally by farms. Both species displayed low genetic diversity, lacking differentiation between strains isolated from dry-cured meat and those from other environments. Nevertheless, the strains collected from dry-cured meat within each species displayed slower proteolysis and lipolysis than their wild conspecifics, and those of P. nalgiovense were whiter. Phenotypically, the non-dry-cured meat strains were more similar to their sister species than to their conspecific dry-cured meat strains, indicating an evolution of specific phenotypes in dry-cured meat strains. A comparison of available Penicillium genomes from various environments revealed HGTs, particularly between P. nalgiovense and P. salamii (representing almost 1.5 Mb of cumulative length). HGTs additionally involved P. biforme, also found in dry-cured meat products. We further detected positive selection based on amino acid changes. Our findings suggest that selection by humans has shaped the P. salamii and P. nalgiovense populations used for dry-cured meat production, which constitutes domestication. Several genetic and phenotypic changes were similar in P. salamii, P. nalgiovense and P. biforme, indicating convergent adaptation to the same human-made environment. Our findings have implications for fundamental knowledge on adaptation and for the food industry: the discovery of dif

Some fungi have been domesticated for food production, with genetic differentiation between populations from food and wild environments, and food populations often acquiring beneficial traits through horizontal gene transfers (HGTs). Studying their adaptation to human-made substrates is of fundamental and applied importance for understanding adaptation processes and for further strain improvement. We studied here the population structures and phenotypes of two distantly related Penicillium species used for dry-cured meat production, P. nalgiovense, the most common species in the dry-cured meat food industry, and P. salamii, used locally by farms. Both species displayed low genetic diversity, lacking differentiation between strains isolated from dry-cured meat and those from other environments. Nevertheless, the strains collected from dry-cured meat within each species displayed slower proteolysis and lipolysis than their wild conspecifics, and those of P. nalgiovense were whiter. Phenotypically, the non-dry-cured meat strains were more similar to their sister species than to their conspecific dry-cured meat strains, indicating an evolution of specific phenotypes in dry-cured meat strains. A comparison of available Penicillium genomes from various environments revealed HGTs, particularly between P. nalgiovense and P. salamii (representing almost 1.5 Mb of cumulative length). HGTs additionally involved P. biforme, also found in dry-cured meat products. We further detected positive selection based on amino acid changes. Our findings suggest that selection by humans has shaped the P. salamii and P. nalgiovense populations used for dry-cured meat production, which constitutes domestication. Several genetic and phenotypic changes were similar in P. salamii, P. nalgiovense and P. biforme, indicating convergent adaptation to the same human-made environment. Our findings have implications for fundamental knowledge on adaptation and for the food industry: the discovery of

Chemerin, the product of tazarotene-induced gene 2 (TIG2) or retinoid acid receptor responder 2 (RARRES2), was originally identified in our laboratory as the natural ligand of the Chemokine like receptor 1 (CMKLR1), also known as ChemR23 or Chemerin1. This potent chemoattractant factor (for macrophages, dendritic cells and natural killer cells) and adipokine appears to regulate leukocyte trafficking, inflammatory responses, angiogenesis and metabolism. In line with this, chemerin was reported to be implicated in various chronic inflammatory diseases, as well as in obesity and obesity-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, work performed on murine melanoma models in our group and by others highlighted the tumor-suppressive properties of chemerin in various cancer types, although the precise mechanisms by which chemerin acts on tumor initiation and/or progression is still poorly understood, with conflicting results, especially in melanoma. In this project, we sought to use the unique strengths of the zebrafish model system in combination with state-of-the-art techniques to address this question. In recent years, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as a powerful model system for the study of cancer and immune cell biology in ways not possible in other vertebrates. Well established zebrafish cancer models in combination with the availability of various lineage-specific fluorescent transgenic reporter lines, offers unprecedented opportunities for high resolution in vivo analysis of cancer development and the dynamic interactions between tumor cells and the host microenvironment. A detailed characterization of the zebrafish chemerin system and its evolutionary history showed that the chemerin axis is highly conserved across the vertebrate phylum, although we found that zebrafish possesses more chemerin and Cmklr1 genes than mammalian species, due to several sequence duplication events. Subsequently, we generated kn, La chémérine, produit du gène tazarotene-induced gene 2 (TIG2) ou retinoid acid receptor responder 2 (RARRES2), a été initialement identifiée dans notre laboratoire comme le ligand naturel du récepteur Chemokine like receptor 1 (CMKLR1), également connu sous le nom de ChemR23 ou Chemerin1. Cette puissante molécule chimioattractante (pour les macrophages, cellules dendritiques et cellules tueuses naturelles) et adipokine est décrite comme régulant le trafic des leucocytes, les réponses inflammatoires, l'angiogenèse et le métabolisme. En ligne avec ces fonctions, la chémérine a été rapportée comme étant impliquée dans diverses maladies inflammatoires chroniques, ainsi que dans l'obésité, le diabète de type 2 et les maladies cardiovasculaires. En outre, les travaux réalisés sur des modèles murins de mélanome dans notre groupe et par d'autres ont mis en évidence les propriétés anti-tumorales de la chémérine dans divers types de cancer, bien que les mécanismes précis par lesquels la chémérine agit sur l'initiation et/ou la progression tumorale soient encore mal compris, avec des données contradictoires, en particulier dans le cas du mélanome. Dans ce projet, nous avons cherché à utiliser les atouts uniques du modèle poisson-zèbre, en combinaison avec des techniques de pointe, pour répondre à cette question. Ces dernières années, le poisson-zèbre (Danio rerio) est en effet devenu un modèle puissant pour l'étude du cancer et de la biologie des cellules immunitaires, avec des approches qui ne sont pas possibles chez les autres vertébrés. Des modèles de cancer bien établis chez le poisson-zèbre, combinés à la disponibilité de diverses lignées transgéniques exprimant des rapporteurs fluorescents dans des populations cellulaires spécifiques, offrent des possibilités sans précédent d'analyse in vivo à haute résolution des stades de développement du cancer et des interactions dynamiques entre cellules tumorales et le microenvironnement de l'hôte. Une caractérisation détaillée du, Doctorat en Sciences biomédicales et pharmaceutiques (Médecine), info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished