Paola Bonfante

• Comment: Meets WP:PROF but needs additional supporting references. Gusfriend (talk) 11:34, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

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Paola Bonfante
Paola Bonfante in February 2022
Born	(1947-05-07) 7 May 1947 Turin, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Education	University of Turin
Scientific career
Fields	Plant biology; Plant microbe interactions
Institutions	National Council of Research (1970-1985); University of Torino (1985-2017), Professor Emerita (Present)

Paola Bonfante is a Professor Emerita of plant biology at the University of Turin., she has dedicated her scientific activity to the symbiosis between fungi and plants (mycorrhizae), associations that involve 90% of plants with significant impacts on ecosystems, as well as on agriculture. Using cellular and molecular biology and next generation sequencing techniques, she contributed to the knowledge of the biological-functional diversity of mycorrhizal fungi and how they communicate and interact with the host plant. She discovered endobacteria living inside mycorrhizal fungi and with omic approaches she described how they modulate some functional traits of fungal hosts . She belongs to Rome Accademia dei Lincei , Turin Academy of Sciences , French Academy of Agriculture , and Academia Europaea . She has been among the most cited researchers in the world and is in the list of top Italian scientists . As professor Emerita, she dedicates herself to scientific dissemination, holding lectures and seminars both in schools and on public occasions. In 2021 she wrote a book, A Plant is not an Island, in which she talks about the scientific themes that fascinated her, placing them in the context of her life and her cultural references.

Early life

Bonfante grew up in the countryside of the North-West of Italy. As a child, Paola liked to collect flowers in the field, but never envisioned becoming a scientist. She attended a very severe Classic Lyceum in Torino (Liceo Cavour) where Latin and Greek were among the most relevant courses. She mostly loved History of Art course.

Education and career

Bonfante graduated from the University of Turin in Biology in 1970. She got a three-year fellowship from the Italian National Council of Research with a research project on the biology of symbiotic fungi corresponding to a Ph.D. training-period. The studies were done under the mentoring of Professor Arturo Ceruti and Anna Fontana in the Centre of Soil Mycology (CNR). She got a position of CNR researcher in 1973, spent a post-doc period in 1980-1981 at the Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris) under the supervision of Jean Claude Roland and Brigitte Vian. In 1984 she was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Turin.

Over the years, she has hold numerous teaching courses of Plant biology for Natural Sciences, Biology and Biotechnology Courses, and has held many institutional roles (Director of Department, Coordinator of Doctoral Programs, Head of research groups). As Emerita, she continues some research work, but dedicates most of her time to editorial activities, scientific evaluations and scientific dissemination.

Research

A catalogue of mycorrhizas directly from the field

Early in Bonfante's career she studied mycorrhizas collecting samples in the most diverse environments and describing their morphological features at transmission electron microscope. Together with Silvano Scannerini, professor of Botany at the University of Ferrara and then of Torino, she built up a catalogue of plant-fungal interactions in the different types of mycorrhizas. Their collaboration led to one of the first descriptions of plant- fungal interactions, the interface, as a crucial feature of all the endomycorrhizas. Later, together with Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson she described the endomycorrhizas of Ericales, revealing the fine structure of their miniaturized hair roots and the impressive dominance of the mycorrhizal fungus. The development of in situ techniques allowed Paola and her team to identify many molecules, which were laid down by the plant at the interface area upon the fungal colonization, providing the first evidences of the plant molecular responses before the advent of molecular biology. This knowledge was at the basis of the description of the so called prepenetration apparatus, which - thanks to more advanced cell biology techniques- revealed how the plant perceives the presence of the AM fungus before its cell colonization.

Mycorrhizas and Mycorrhizal fungi: the new genomics era

Paola was one of the first researchers to apply PCR to mycorrhizal fungi (early in the nineties of the past century, to identify them and to reveal their genetic variability. She contributed to the knowledge of their diversity in natural as well as in cultivated fields. With the improving of molecular and omics approaches, she examined the functionality of plant and fungal genes relevant for mycorrhizal functioning, was involved in international projects aimed to describe the genome of mycorrhizal fungi, from Tuber melanosporum to Rhizophagus irregularis, in addition to the sequencing of Gigaspora margarita, the AM fungus which is the model fungus in her lab. The availability of plant and fungal genomes were the basis for developing many transcriptomics and proteomic analysis of crop plants under different conditions. On the other hand, cell biology coupled to molecular approaches led her group together with David Barker in Toulouse to identify short oligosaccharides as bioactive molecules released by the fungus and perceived by the plant activating calcium spiking responses.

Am fungi and their endobacteria

Early in her career and looking at mycorrhizal roots under transmission electron microscope, Paola observed the presence of endobacteria living in the cytoplasm of many AM fungi collected under natural conditions. Coupling cell biology to PCR amplification of 16 SRNA genes to many AM fungal isolates maintained in culture collections, she identified two groups of endobacteria as Burkolderia- and Mycoplasma related. Their genome sequencing revealed a strong genome reduction and the dependency of the endobacteria on their fungal hosts. By developing a cured fungal line, she described how these microbes may modulate some of the functional traits of their fungal hosts as well as of the mycorrhizal plant. These findings have pioneered a new field of research (Fungal-bacterial interactions) which is currently considered relevant in the context of the environmental microbiota.

AM fungi as a part of the plant microbiota

In the more recent times, PB has devoted her attention to the beneficial impact of plant microbiota on crop plants by using omics approaches.Starting from the concept that mycorrhizal fungi are a stable component of plant microbiota, together with the colleagues from the Insumbria University, she has demonstrated how AM fungi may modulate their impact on wheat plant growth depending on whether plant growth promoting bacteria are present. AM fungi seem to have a beneficial driving role, when compared to other microbes.

Selected publications

• Bonfante, Paola; Genre, Andrea (2010-07-27). "Mechanisms underlying beneficial plant–fungus interactions in mycorrhizal symbiosis". Nature Communications. 1 (1): 48. doi:10.1038/ncomms1046. ISSN 2041-1723.
• Bonfante, Paola; Anca, Iulia-Andra (2009-10-01). "Plants, Mycorrhizal Fungi, and Bacteria: A Network of Interactions". Annual Review of Microbiology. 63 (1): 363–383. doi:10.1146/annurev.micro.091208.073504. ISSN 0066-4227.
• Bonfante, Paola; Genre, Andrea (2010-07-27). "Mechanisms underlying beneficial plant–fungus interactions in mycorrhizal symbiosis". Nature Communications. 1 (1): 48. doi:10.1038/ncomms1046. ISSN 2041-1723.
• Genre, Andrea; Chabaud, Mireille; Timmers, Ton; Bonfante, Paola; Barker, David G. (December 2005). "Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Elicit a Novel Intracellular Apparatus in Medicago truncatula Root Epidermal Cells before Infection" (PDF). The Plant Cell. 17 (12): 3489–3499. doi:10.1105/tpc.105.035410. PMC 1315383. PMID 16284314. Retrieved 2022-10-01.
• Genre, Andrea; Chabaud, Mireille; Balzergue, Coline; Puech‐Pagès, Virginie; Novero, Mara; Rey, Thomas; Fournier, Joëlle; Rochange, Soizic; Bécard, Guillaume; Bonfante, Paola; Barker, David G. (April 2013). "Short‐chain chitin oligomers from arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi trigger nuclear C a 2+ spiking in Medicago truncatula roots and their production is enhanced by strigolactone". New Phytologist. 198 (1): 190–202. doi:10.1111/nph.12146. ISSN 0028-646X.
• Bianciotto, V; Bandi, C; Minerdi, D; Sironi, M; Tichy, H V; Bonfante, P (August 1996). "An obligately endosymbiotic mycorrhizal fungus itself harbors obligately intracellular bacteria". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 62 (8): 3005–3010. doi:10.1128/aem.62.8.3005-3010.1996. ISSN 0099-2240. PMC 168087. PMID 8702293.
• Bonfante-Fasolo, Paola (1984). "Chapter 2: Anatomy and Morphology of Va Mycorrhizae". In Powell, Conway Ll; Bagyaraj, D. Joseph (eds.). VA mycorrhiza (1st ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 4–33. doi:10.1201/9781351077514. ISBN 978-1-351-07751-4. OCLC 1035749016.

Awards and honors

• 2000: Fellow of Academy of Sciences of Torino
• 2000: Fellow of Academy of Agriculture of Torino
• 2011: Fellow of Accademia dei Lincei Roma ( November 2021, national membership)
• 2018: Fellow of Académie d'Agriculture de France, Paris
• 2019: Fellow of Academia Europea, MAE
• 2019: Appointed Commander (“Commendatore”) of the “Order of Merit of the Italian Republic” by the President of the Italian Republic (“motu proprio”) .
• 2010: Award for the Award for the French Food Spirit- Science – Paris, December 16, 2010 2021: The Adam Kondorosi -Academia Europaea Award for Advanced research, September 2021

She is in the list of:

• Top Italian Scientists - Typology Natural sciences https://www.topitalianscientists.org/TIS_HTML/Top_Italian_Scientists_Natural_Environmental_Sciences.htm
• In the list of Clarivate Analytics: highly quoted researcher 2017, 2018, 2020
• One hundred Italian Experts
• Member of Group 2003

Taxonomy

In 2021, one of Bonfante's trainees, Francesco Magurno together with other colleagues, named an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Dominikia bonfanteae, in recognition of Bonfante's contributions to the field

External links

• Prof. Paola Bonfante - Emeritus Professor - University of Turin - Italy
• Paola Bonfante publications indexed by Google Scholar