{"title":"François Gros: from antibiotics to messenger RNA.","authors":"Moshe Yaniv","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.130","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.130","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>François Gros was a prominent French Molecular Biologist who made a major contribution to the discovery of messenger RNA in 1961. He pursued outstanding research on bacterial mRNA and its translation into proteins followed by pioneering work on muscle differentiation. I was lucky to be among his graduate students and owe much of my success in science to him. In this short text I will describe how the initial post-war studies of François guided him to discover the existence of short-lived RNA in bacteria, the messenger RNA containing the information for protein synthesis. I will also recount the influence he had on his students and their carrier in science.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138799664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[Working with François Gros at the Institut Pasteur: allostery, the nicotinic receptor and the biology of the future].","authors":"Jean-Pierre Changeux","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.143","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.143","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Working with François Gros was a privileged moment in my scientific life, enabling me to appreciate a scientific personality whose generosity knew no bounds and whose vision of science was far ahead of its time.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138833121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[mRNA vaccination, a model of transition from basic biology to medicine].","authors":"Philippe J Sansonetti","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.129","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.129","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sixty years elapsed between the discovery of messenger RNA (mRNA) and the use of this molecule in an unprecedented global vaccination campaign that brought the Covid-19 pandemic under control. Sixty years of doubts for some and certainties for others about the possibility of using mRNA-an example of synthetic biology-in therapeutic medicine and vaccinology. Years of \"translational\" research and development have culminated in the success of anti-Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and the promise of more to come against emerging pathogens. A new paradigm in vaccinology, enabling pandemics to be tackled as they emerge. A lesson to be learned: medical progress is less a question of time than of the critical nature of the biological discovery that underpins it. Before leaving us, François Gros, who played a key role in the discovery of mRNA, was able to appreciate the relevance of this obvious fact.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139479516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[François Gros (1925-2022)].","authors":"Christine Petit, Philippe Kourilsky","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.146","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.146","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>François Gros, a biologist by training, began his research at the Institut Pasteur. In 1961, he discovered the molecular nature of the proposed intermediary between the gene and the protein, a so-called messenger RNA (mRNA), and determined its main characteristics. The author of numerous books, François Gros has helped shape and enlightened the birth of molecular biology and the development of related biotechnologies since the 1970s. He was Professor at the Collège de France and Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. Within the Academy, he initiated the creation of a committee for developing countries (COPED). François Gros was a humanist driven by moral rigour and an unfailing sense of commitment.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140061314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[François Gros' laboratory at the Collège de France].","authors":"Monique Lazar","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.135","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.135","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>I was recruited by François Gros as a PhD student in his laboratory at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique in 1965, and continued to work with him after I graduated. In 1973, when he was appointed Professor of Cellular Biochemistry at the Collège de France, François decided to set up a team working on neuronal differentiation. He asked me to take part in this new scientific adventure. Here I'd like to talk about the members of his laboratory and some of their scientific work, in particular that on the cytoskeleton of neurons.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138833120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[Anthropization and tick-borne diseases: the example of Lyme borreliosis].","authors":"Nathalie Boulanger","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.115","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.115","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ticks and tick-borne diseases are on the rise throughout the world. The reasons are multifactorial but all associated with human practices, including climate change and socio-economic and eco systemic changes. In the northern hemisphere, Lyme borreliosis and its vector, the tick belonging to the Ixodes ricinus complex, are particularly studied. Changes in forestry and the expansion of certain wild ungulates since the Second World War could explain the increasing presence of this tick in our environment. As it is likely to transmit other microorganisms potentially pathogenic to humans, an integrated multidisciplinary approach to identify human practices promoting its expansion is critical to control the (re)emergence of infectious diseases. Other ticks also benefit from the same anthropised context to increase their numbers in the environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10130458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Epigenetic and gene regulatory functions of small RNAs.","authors":"Germano Cecere","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.131","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.131","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this review article, I summarize the intervention I made during the \"Hommage à François Gros\" held at the Institut Pasteur in Paris on the 25th of April, 2023. I discuss how the discovery of the existence of an RNA intermediate between genetic information and protein translation has changed our perspective on the role of RNA in gene regulation in these past years. I also discuss new emerging paradigms, highlighting the role of RNA in heritable information similar to the well-known DNA function.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138799659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[A multi-resistant bacterium before the era of antibiotics: the agent of melioidosis].","authors":"Yves Buisson","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.109","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.109","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Melioidosis is an infectious, tropical and emerging disease, due to a bacterium of the hydrotelluric environment, Burkholderia pseudomallei, which is considered as a potential biological weapon because of its exceptional resistance and virulence capacities. Its worldwide spread, outside the original endemic foci of Southeast Asia and Australia, is favoured by global warming and the diabetes mellitus pandemic, which is the main predisposing factor.In humans, melioidosis is an opportunistic infection, following professional (rice farmers, soldiers) or accidental contamination, by inhalation or inoculation. B. pseudomallei is a facultative intracellular bacterium that can overcome host immune defences, induce acute, subacute, or chronic invasive infection, or remain latent for years. The acute infection is polymorphic, bacteraemic in more than 50% of cases, frequently complicated by shock, and revealed by visceral abscesses, most often pulmonary. It is fatal in 20 to 50% of cases, the prognosis depending on the delay before the establishment of effective first-line antibiotic therapy, using ceftazidime or carbapenems, and therefore on the speed of bacteriological diagnosis.B. pseudomallei is a saprophytic bacterium, resident of the rhizosphere where it has developed and accumulated capacities to overcome environmental stresses and competition with organisms living in such ecosystem. These adaptation mechanisms are also the virulence factors that make melioidosis serious, in particular the efflux pumps that are the main support for its multi-resistance to antibiotics.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10503023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Philippe Lazar, Pierre Papon, Louis Gallois
{"title":"[A tribute to François Gros, a committed scientist].","authors":"Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Philippe Lazar, Pierre Papon, Louis Gallois","doi":"10.5802/crbiol.148","DOIUrl":"10.5802/crbiol.148","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As an eminent scientist, fully aware of his social responsibilities, François Gros has been consulted on several occasions on how to make better use of science in the service of society. One of the first reports asked of him was by President Giscard d'Estaing on the social and industrial consequences of the rise of biology (1979). A few years later, at the request of President François Mitterrand, he chaired the National Conference on Research and Technology (1981-1982), which led to substantial changes in the way French public research was organised.</p>","PeriodicalId":55231,"journal":{"name":"Comptes Rendus Biologies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140095098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}