Research

Defense against antagonists is a feature shared by all domains of life and is achieved via various strategies.

Fungi mainly rely on chemical defense, which is an ancient and widely conserved strategy consisting in the production of innate defense effector molecules, also known as toxins, which are detrimental to the antagonist. Usually, the activity of these effectors is antagonist-specific and their production tightly regulated, both temporally and spatially, in response to internal or external cues.

Our research aims at the characterization of the chemical defense mechanisms of filamentous fungi against bacteria and animal micropredators, with special emphasis on regulation. To do so, we take an experimental, reductionistic approach, confronting the model agaricomycete Coprinopsis cinerea with model antagonists under laboratory conditions and studying their interactions at macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular level. We use microfluidics devices to control these interactions spatially, for example by limiting the access of antagonists to specific parts of the fungal mycelium.