Alain Prochiantz

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Alain Prochiantz (born December 17, 1948 in Paris) is a neurobiology researcher and professor at the Collège de France, of which he became director from 2015 to 2019.

File:Alain Prochiantz Forum France Culture Sciences 2016.JPG
Alain Prochiantz at "L'année vue par les sciences" forum organized by France Culture on February 13, 2016

Biography

Alain Prochiantz is a former student of the École normale supérieure (1969). After a science thesis obtained in 1976 in the field of genetic translation, he turned towards neurobiology by working with Jacques Glowinski and became a research fellow (1978-1981) and then research director (1982-2007) at the CNRS.[1] He was appointed head of the Biology Department at the École normale supérieure, which he kept until 2006, when he became the holder of the "Morphogenetic Processes" chair at the Collège de France in 2007.[1]

He has also been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 18 November 2003[2] and chairman of the Research Committee of the Foundation for Medical Research (FRM). In 2011, he received the Inserm Grand Prix de l'Inserm[3][4] for all his work.

Alain Prochiantz is also the author of numerous scientific articles and books on the brain; he participates in scientific theatre productions with his friend Jean-François Peyret. Together, they are collaborating on the writing of the play Ex vivo / In vitro, premiered at the Théâtre de la Colline in November 2011.

Alain Prochiantz served as director of the Collège de France from 2015 to 2019.

Scientific contributions

Alain Prochiantz has been working since the early 1980s in the field of molecular neurobiology, particularly on the processes of morphogenesis and nerve cell differentiation. He did his first major work at the Collège de France with Jacques Glowinski on the development and in vitro maturation of dopaminergic neurons in the mesencephalon.[5][6][7]

His laboratory having moved to the École normale supérieure, he then became interested in the molecular signals responsible for certain neuronal morphogenesis processes and, in 1991, highlighted in particular the role of homeoboxes of certain transcription factors[8][9] (but also of different extracellular matrix proteins such as tenascin,[10] glycoaminoglycans[11]...) in these phenomena.

As was then fully accepted in the scientific community, he proposes that cascades of regulation of homeotic genes (of the Hox family) are potentially involved in many stages of neuronal differentiation, neurite growth, neuronal polarity... However, going against a certain number of knowledge, or even dogmas in the field of molecular biology, he reports that domains of transcription factors, or even whole proteins such as Hox5, can be internalized in a cell[12][13] and therefore suggests the possible secretion of a given transcription factor by a nerve cell A that can be internalized by a neighbouring cell B and have a biological effect on it. To clearly demonstrate this, he and his team are interested in the homeoprotein Engrailed of the Hox gene family involved in the morphogenesis of brain structures and demonstrate that it also has an intracellular location in secretion vesicles.[14]

The first key publication supporting this theory was in 1998 with the in vitro demonstration that a large proportion of the nuclear transcription factor Engrailed is effectively secreted in the extracellular medium by Cos cells and recaptured by cocultured neurons acting as a potential intercellular peptide messenger.[15] These articles were published in good biology journals but not in the forefront because the data were relatively contested by the scientific community.[16] These discoveries will take some time to be recognized.[17] His team then demonstrated the involvement of Engrailed-1/2 proteins in the development and survival of dopaminergic neurons by using heterozygous mouse models (En1+/-) for them[18] and by proposing a mechanism of action on the transcriptional activation of the Ndufs1 and Ndufs3 subunits of complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain.[19]

Alain Prochiantz continues his work in evolutionary developmental genetics and directs his research towards the physiological aspects of his fundamental molecular discoveries, particularly for the understanding of neuronal plasticity and axonal guidance processes.[16]

Awards and honours

  •    2001: Research Prize of the Allianz-Institut de France Foundation.[20]
  •    2011: Grand Prix de l'Inserm

Books

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Biographie d'Alain Prochiantz sur le site histoire.inserm.fr, consulté le 16 février 2016.
  2. ↑ Alain Prochiantz Archived 2011-08-10 at the Wayback Machine sur le site de l'Académie des sciences.
  3. ↑ Lauréats du Grand Prix de la recherche médical 2011 Archived 2011-12-05 at the Wayback Machine sur le site de l'Inserm.
  4. ↑ Alain Prochiantz, grand prix INSERM émission La Tête au carré du 7 décembre 2011 sur France Inter.
  5. ↑ Effect of striatal cells on in vitro maturation of mesencephalic dopaminergic neurones grown in serum-free conditions. par di Porzio U, Daguet MC, Glowinski J, Prochiantz A. dans Nature du 27 novembre 1980;288(5789):370-3.
  6. ↑ Specific stimulation of in vitro maturation of mesencephalic dopaminergic neurones by striatal membranes. par Prochiantz A, Daguet MC, Herbet A, Glowinski J. dans Nature du 15 octobre 1981;293(5833):570-2.
  7. ↑ Glial heterogeneity may define the three-dimensional shape of mouse mesencephalic dopaminergic neurones. par Denis-Donini S, Glowinski J, Prochiantz A. dans Nature du 16 février 1984;307(5952):641-3.
  8. ↑ Antennapedia homeobox peptide regulates neural morphogenesis. par Joliot A, Pernelle C, Deagostini-Bazin H, Prochiantz A. dans PNAS 1991 Mar 1;88(5):1864-8.
  9. ↑ Antennapedia homeobox peptide enhances growth and branching of embryonic chicken motoneurons in vitro. par Bloch-Gallego E, Le Roux I, Joliot AH, Volovitch M, Henderson CE, Prochiantz A. dans Journal of Cell Biology 1993 Jan;120(2):485-92
  10. ↑ J1/tenascin in substrate-bound and soluble form displays contrary effects on neurite outgrowth. par Lochter A, Vaughan L, Kaplony A, Prochiantz A, Schachner M, Faissner A. dans Journal of Cell Biology 1991 Jun;113(5):1159-71.
  11. ↑ In vitro control of neuronal polarity by glycosaminoglycans. par Lafont F, Rouget M, Triller A, Prochiantz A, Rousselet A. dans Development 1992 Jan;114(1):17-29.
  12. ↑ Cell internalization of the third helix of the Antennapedia homeodomain is receptor-independent. Archived 2008-04-25 at the Wayback Machine par Derossi D, Calvet S, Trembleau A, Brunissen A, Chassaing G, Prochiantz A. dans Journal of Biological Chemistry 1996 Jul 26;271(30):18188-93.
  13. ↑ Transcription factor hoxa-5 is taken up by cells in culture and conveyed to their nuclei. par Chatelin L, Volovitch M, Joliot AH, Perez F, Prochiantz A. dans Mech. Dev. 1996 Apr;55(2):111-7.
  14. ↑ Association of Engrailed homeoproteins with vesicles presenting caveolae-like properties. par Joliot A, Trembleau A, Raposo G, Calvet S, Volovitch M, Prochiantz A. dans Development 1997 May;124(10):1865-75.
  15. ↑ Identification of a signal sequence necessary for the unconventional secretion of Engrailed homeoprotein. par Joliot A, Maizel A, Rosenberg D, Trembleau A, Dupas S, Volovitch M, Prochiantz A. dans Current Biology 1998 Jul 16;8(15):856-63
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Ariane Poulantzas, entretien avec Alain Prochiantz, « Les bactéries pensent aussi », La Vie des idées, 5 juin 2009
  17. ↑ Can transcription factors function as cell-cell signalling molecules? par Prochiantz A, Joliot A. dans Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2003 Oct;4(10):814-9.
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "In lang". Progressive Loss of Dopaminergic Neurons in the Ventral Midbrain of Adult Mice Heterozygote for Engrailed1 par Laure Sonnier, Gwenaëlle Le Pen, Andreas Hartmann, Jean-Charles Bizot, Fabrice Trovero, Marie-Odile Krebs, et Alain Prochiantz, dans J. Neurosci., 31 January 2007, 27(5): 1063-1071.
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "In lang". Engrailed protects mouse midbrain dopaminergic neurons against mitochondrial complex I insults par Daniel Alvarez-Fischer, Julia Fuchs, François Castagner, Olivier Stettler, Olivia Massiani-Beaudoin, Kenneth L Moya, Colette Bouillot, Wolfgang H Oertel, Anne Lombès, Wolfgang Faigle, Rajiv L Joshi, Andreas Hartmann et Alain Prochiantz dans Nature Neuroscience, 4 septembre 2011, 14:1260–1266.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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