CV Science

Ariane Abrieu Ph. D. Health Biology

Course and current status

• 2008-Present: Associate Professor at CRBM, Montpellier, France.

• 2002-2008: Assistant Professor at CRBM, Montpellier, France.

• 1997-2001: Post-doctoral position in Prof. Don W. Cleveland laboratory, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, La Jolla, U.S.A. Role of the kinetochore associated kinesin CENP-E in the mitotic checkpoint.

• 1993-1997: Ph. D. directed by Prof. Marcel Dorée, CRBM, Montpellier, France. Control of the cell cycle by Cdk-cyclin and MAPK in Xenopus eggs.

Scientific summary

My research is focused on mitosis: how post-translational modifications (phosphorylation or SUMOylation) regulate the assembly and disassembly of the mitotic spindle by regulating microtubule dynamics. We contributed significantly to the discovery of new players of the spindle assembly checkpoint: the kinesin Cenp-E and the kinase Mps1. We showed that the kinase Mps1 regulates the motility of Cenp-E in vitro, and that PLK1 can compensate for the lack of MPS1 in nematodes, which uncovered a novel role for PLK1 in the spindle assembly checkpoint. We found that MPS1 kinase activity is potentiated by CDK1 during mitosis, which is essential to the mitotic checkpoint. We also identified the small molecule UA62784 as a potent inhibitor of microtubule polymerization. Since 2018, I joined Dimitris Liakopoulos team to study how SUMOylation affects the properties of the mitotic spindle.