Franck A. Dumetz, PhD

2012-2018  Ph.D in Biomedical Sciences University of Antwerp - Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium

2010-2012  M.Sc in Molecular and Cellular Biology, specialty Medical Parasitology and Mycology Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, Paris, France

2007-2010  B.Sc Biology, specialty Biotechnology Institut Libre des Sciences et Technologies, Institut Catholique de Lille, Lille, France

I organized my PhD work around the discoveries made in two studies on the genome diversity of Leishmania donovani in the Indian subcontinent and the impact of that diversity on the metabolome

1. Imamura H, Downing T, Van den Broeck F, Sanders MJ, Rijal S, Sundar S, Mannaert A, Vanaerschot M, Berg M, De Muylder G, Dumetz F, Cuypers B, Maes I, Domagalska M, Decuypere S, Rai K, Uranw S, Bhattarai NR, Khanal B, Prajapati VK, Sharma S, Stark O, Schönian G, De Koning HP, Settimo L, Vanhollebeke B, Roy S, Ostyn B, Boelaert M, Maes L, Berriman M, Dujardin JC, Cotton JA. Evolutionary genomics of epidemic visceral leishmaniasis in the Indian subcontinent. Elife. 2016 Mar 22;5. PMC4811772.
2. Cuypers B, Berg M, Imamura H, Dumetz F, De Muylder G, Domagalska MA, Rijal S, Bhattarai NR, Maes I, Sanders M, Cotton JA, Meysman P, Laukens K, Dujardin JC. Integrated genomic and metabolomic profiling of ISC1, an emerging Leishmania donovani population in the Indian subcontinent. Infect Genet Evol. 2018 Aug;62:170-178.  PMC6261844.

The core of my PhD work relied on studying changes in genome plasticity of donovani facing environmental changes like during the transmission between a mammalian host to the insect host, drug pressure, or culture.

1. Dumetz F, Imamura H, Sanders M, Seblova V, Myskova J, Pescher P, Vanaerschot M, Meehan CJ, Cuypers B, De Muylder G, Späth GF, Bussotti G, Vermeesch JR, Berriman M, Cotton JA, Volf P, Dujardin JC, Domagalska MA. Modulation of Aneuploidy in Leishmania donovani during Adaptation to Different In Vitro and In Vivo Environments and Its Impact on Gene Expression. mBio. 2017 May 23;8(3). PMC5442457.
2. Prieto Barja P, Pescher P, Bussotti G, Dumetz F, Imamura H, Kedra D, Domagalska M, Chaumeau V, Himmelbauer H, Pages M, Sterkers Y, Dujardin JC, Notredame C, Späth GF. Haplotype selection as an adaptive mechanism in the protozoan pathogen Leishmania donovani. Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Dec;1(12):1961-1969.
3. Bussotti G, Gouzelou E, Côrtes Boité M, Kherachi I, Harrat Z, Eddaikra N, Mottram JC, Antoniou M, Christodoulou V, Bali A, Guerfali FZ, Laouini D, Mukhtar M, Dumetz F, Dujardin JC, Smirlis D, Lechat P, Pescher P, El Hamouchi A, Lemrani M, Chicharro C, Llanes-Acevedo IP, Botana L, Cruz I, Moreno J, Jeddi F, Aoun K, Bouratbine A, Cupolillo E, Späth GF. Leishmania Genome Dynamics during Environmental Adaptation Reveal Strain-Specific Differences in Gene Copy Number Variation, Karyotype Instability, and Telomeric Amplification. mBio. 2018 Nov 6;9(6). PMC6222132.
4. Dumetz F, Cuypers B, Imamura H, Zander D, D’Haenens E, Maes I, Domagalska MA, Clos J, Dujardin J-C and De Muylder G. Molecular pre-adaptation to antimony resistance in Leishmania donovani of the Indian sub-continent. mSphere, 2017; 3(2): e00548-17. PMC5907651

During my doctoral studies studying the importance of DNA in the life of Leishmania, I developed an even stronger intellectual appetite for RNA and started to think that RNA was the essential player when it comes to parasite biology (and even more in the case of Leishmania). Therefore, I started my postdoctoral training with the ambition to acquire new knowledge and techniques to study RNA structures

1. Dumetz F, Merrick CJ. Parasitic Protozoa: Unusual Roles for G-Quadruplexes in Early-Diverging Eukaryotes. Molecules. 2019 Apr 5;24(7). PMCID: PMC6480360.
2. Dumetz F, Chow EY, Harris LM, Liew SW, Jensen A, Umar MI, Chung B, Chan TF, Merrick CJ, Kwok CK. G-quadruplex RNA motifs influence gene expression in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021;49(21):12486-501. PMCID: PMC8643661.
3. Dumetz F, Enright AJ, Zhao J, Kwok CK, Merrick CJ. The in vivo RNA structurome of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, a protozoan with an A/U-rich transcriptome. PLoS One. 2022;17(9):e0270863. PMCID: PMC9436142

Parasites, RNA biology (structure and base modifications), sequencing

1. Dumetz F*, Chow EY-C*, Harris LM, Umar MI, Jensen A, Chung B, Chan TF, Merrick CJ and Kwok CK. G-quadruplex RNA motifs influence gene expression in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Nucleic Acids Research, 2021; 49(21), 12486-12501
2. Dumetz F, Imamura H, Sanders M, Seblova V, Myskova J, Pescher P, Cuypers B, De Muylder G, Späth GF, Bussotti G, Vermeesch JR, Berriman M, Cotton JA, Volf P, Dujardin JC, Domagalska MA. Modulation of aneuploidy in Leishmania donovani during adaptation to different in vitro and in vivo environments and its impact on gene expression. MBio, 2017; 8(3): e00599-17.
3. Dumetz F, Cuypers B, Imamura H, Zander D, D’Haenens E, Maes I, Domagalska MA, Clos J, Dujardin J-C and De Muylder G. Molecular pre-adaptation to antimony resistance in Leishmania donovani of the Indian sub-continent. mSphere, 2017; 3(2): e00548-17.
4. Dumetz F and Merrick CJ. Parasitic protozoa: Unusual roles for G-quadruplexes in early-diverging eukaryotes. Molecules, 2019; 24(7):1339.