Recognizing Plant Cell authors: Constance Musseau
Constance Musseau, first author of The tomato Guanylate-Binding Protein SlGBP1 enables fruit tissue differentiation by maintaining endopolyploid cells in a non-proliferative state
Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden
Education: PhD, Fruit Biology and Pathology, INRA, Bordeaux, France
Non-scientific Interests: Modern art and design
Brief bio: I discovered plant biology during my undergraduate studies at the University of Bordeaux in France. Since then, I have been passionate about questions on plant development and notably how plants adapt in the course of evolution and changes in their environment. During my master’s degree, I studied the role of endoreduplication in tomato fruit growth, by comparing fruit tissues of different tomato mutants at the cellular level. Thanks to this project I discovered cell biology and how exciting it is to work under a microscope. I continued to investigate determinants of fruit growth during my Ph.D. and I identified a novel function for the GBP1 protein during tomato fruit growth. My work opens new avenues in the understanding of endoreduplication control in plants. I find it fascinating to unravel the genetic basis underlying the change in organ and tissue morphology and to understand the specificity of plant cell functions.
Today, I am a postdoctoral researcher in Charles Melnyk’s group, at the Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. I am studying plant vascular development and I am investigating the genetic basis for grafting incompatibility in different plant models. In the future, I would like to continue unraveling new functions in plant development, associated with the adaptation to climate change.
