Leverhulme Trust Postdoc & Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow
s.bettinazzi[at]ucl.ac.uk
@StefanoBettina2
I am an evolutionary physiologist with a soft spot for mitochondria and cellular bioenergetics. I completed my BSc in Environmental Sciences at the University of Padova, Italy, followed by a MSc in Biology at the University of Bologna, Italy, and a PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Montreal, Canada. My research interests focus on the adaptive value of sex-specific mitochondrial DNA variations, as well as the co-evolutionary dynamics between two very different genomes, the mitochondrial and the nuclear DNA. This includes intergenomic conflicts and the consequences of epistasis on fitness.
HORIZON-2020 MSCA – ‘MitoNuEco’ project
Since 2021, I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at University College of London, UK, part of Nick Lane and Florencia Camus teams. My MSCA project – ‘MitoNuEco’ (mitonuclear ecology) – uses integrative approaches that span levels of biological organization (cellular, individual and population level) to investigate how far mitonuclear interactions impact the ability of native populations to cope with a rapidly changing world, underpinning local adaptation, hybrid breakdown, speciation, and extinction. In a nutshell, this project explores how temperature and diet modulation impact the major fitness effects of mitonuclear incompatibilities in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, and how this finally translates into ecological population dynamics. By including mitonuclear epistasis as a new dimension to the field, this project is expected to foster our capacity for making predictions on species ability to endure our current climate crisis.
“As a MSCA fellow, I was given the unique opportunity to develop my own research interests and collaborate with several leading experts in the field. This fellowship is allowing me to increase my breadth of expertise and grow as a scientist in a novel, internationally renowned research environment. I am sincerely grateful to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, University College London and all the colleagues within the “MitoNuEco” project.”
The project ‘MitoNuEco’ has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101030803.
PUBLICATIONS * denotes shared-first authorship
17. Pouliot-Drouin A, Niaison T, Breton S, Bettinazzi S (submitted) Investigating the role of mitochondrial membrane potential in paternal inheritance of mitochondria. Biology Letters, RSBL-2023-0513
16. Bettinazzi S, Liang J, Rodriguez E, Bonneau M, Holt R, Whitehead B, Dowling D, Lane N, Camus F. (under review) Assessing the role of mitonuclear interactions on mitochondrial function and organismal fitness in natural Drosophila populations. Evolution Letters EVL3-23-0147
15. Rodríguez E, Bettinazzi S, Inwongwan S, Camus MF, Lane N. (2023) Harmonising protocols to measure Drosophila respiratory function in mitochondrial preparations. Bioenergetics Communications 2023.3, doi.org/10.26124/bec:2023-0003
14. Kienzle L* & Bettinazzi S* & Choquette T*, Brunet M, Hosseini Khorami H, Jacques J, Moreau M, Roucou X, Landry CR, Angers A, Breton S. (2023) A small protein coded within the mitochondrial canonical gene nd4 regulates mitochondrial bioenergetics. BMC Biology. 21(1), 111, doi.org/10.1186/s12915-023-01609-y
13. Mélançon V, Breton S, Bettinazzi S, Levet M, Binning SA. (2023) Mitochondrial metabolism and body condition of naturally infected sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus). Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 96:4, 247-259 doi.org/10.1086/725209
12. Biot-Pelletier D, Bettinazzi S, Gagnon-Arsenault I, Dube AK, Bédard C, Nguyen THM, Fiumera H, Breton S, Landry C. (2023) Evolutionary trajectories are contingent on mitonuclear interactions. Molecular Biology and Evolution 40(4):msad061, doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad061
11. Bettinazzi S, Milani L, Blier PU, Breton S. (2021) Bioenergetic consequences of sex-specific mitochondrial DNA evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 288(1957):20211585, doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1585
10. Iannello M, Bettinazzi S, Breton S, Ghiselli F, Milani L. (2021) A naturally heteroplasmic clam provides clues about the effects of genetic bottleneck on paternal mtDNA. Genome Biology and Evolution 13(3):evab022, doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evab022
9. Stewart DT, Breton S, Chase E, Robicheau B, Bettinazzi S, Pante E, Youssef N, Garrido-Ramos M. (2020) An unusual evolutionary strategy: the origins, genetic repertoire, and implications of doubly uniparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA in bivalves. In: Pontarotti P. (eds), Evolutionary Biology — A Transdisciplinary Approach, 301-323, Springer, Cham, doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57246-4_12
8. Chapdelaine V* & Bettinazzi S*, Breton S, Anger B. (2020) Effect of mitonuclear combination, acclimation and thermal acclimation on the energetic phenotype. Journal of Experimental Zoology A 333(4):264-270, doi.org/10.1002/jez.2355
7. Gnaiger E, …, Bettinazzi S, MitoEAGLE Task Group (2020) Mitochondrial physiology. Bioenergetics Communications 2020.1, doi:10.26124/bec:2020-0001.v1
6. Hraoui G, Bettinazzi S, Gendron AD, Boisclair D, Breton S. (2020) Mitochondrial thermo-sensitivity in invasive and native freshwater mussels. Journal of Experimental Biology 223(2):jeb215921, doi:10.1242/jeb.215921
5. Bettinazzi S, Nadarajah S, Dalpé A, Milani L, Blier PU, Breton S. (2020) Linking paternally-inherited mtDNA variants and sperm performance. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 375:20190177, doi:10.1098/rstb.2019.0177
4. Bettinazzi S, Gendron AD, Breton S. (2019) The effect of cryopreservation on mitochondrial function in freshwater mussel tissue samples (Bivalvia: Unionida). Cryobiology 88:106-9, doi:10.1016/j.cryobiol.2019.04.006
3. Bettinazzi S, Rodríguez E, Milani L, Blier PU, Breton S. (2019) Metabolic remodelling associated with mtDNA: insights into the adaptive value of doubly uniparental inheritance of mitochondria. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286: 20182708, doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.2708
2. Breton S, Bouvet K, Auclair G, Ghazal S, Sietman BE, Johnson N, Bettinazzi S, Stewart DT, Guerra D. (2017) The extremely divergent maternally- and paternally-transmitted mitochondrial genomes are co-expressed in somatic tissues of freshwater mussels with doubly uniparental inheritance of mtDNA. PLoS ONE 12(8): e0183529, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0183529
1. Bettinazzi S* & Plazzi F*, Passamonti M. (2016) The Complete Female- and Male-Transmitted Mitochondrial Genome of Meretrix lamarckii. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0153631, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153631