Thomas Eychenne

My name is Thomas Eychenne, I am 28 years old. I followed a university course initiated by a Bachelor of Chemistry-Biology obtained at the University Paris-Est Créteil, followed by a Master of Cellular Systems Biology obtained at the ENS Paris and the Pierre and Marie Curie University .

During this master, I joined the laboratory of Michel Werner and Julie Soutourina at the Atomic Energy Commissariat of Saclay to do my internship and my thesis. In the laboratory we are studying a protein complex called Mediator. This complex, composed of 25 subunits in yeast and conserved in all eukaryotes, has a central place in the integration and transmission of regulatory signals from transcription to transcriptional machinery. The large number of subunits, some of which being essential for sustainability, has made it difficult to accurately understand the molecular mechanisms of action of the Mediator

My job was to study two essential subunits of the middle module of the yeast mediator. For this, I have characterized thermosensitive mutants of the Med10 and Med7 subunits with integrative methods ranging from biochemistry to bioinformatics through genomic approaches. I have thus been able to show the essential role of the medium module in the establishment of the complexes of pre-initiation of the transcription as well as on the transcriptional activity of the whole genome by highlighting a network of functional interactions between the medium module and the general transcription factor TFIIB. I could also show that the influence of the Mediator is different according to the architecture of the promoters.

I am now a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Pasteur where I study the mechanisms regulating the three-dimensional architecture of chromatin and its role in the regulation of transcription.