Quentin Rivière
Graduated with a PhD in Agronomy at the Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) in 2022, I have been conducting research in the Laboratory of Plant Epigenetics of Dr. Iva Mozgová (Czech Republic) since 2023. I am specialized in transcriptomics, epigenomics, functional genomics, machine learning and plant metabolism and stress responses. I have been diving into the evolution and diversity of the chromatin states in the green lineage, with a special focus on H3K27me3, the hallmark of facultative heterochromatin. My favourite organisms are Chlorella sorokiniana, a micro-alga of biotechnological interest, and Arabidopsis thaliana, the most studied flowering plant. I have been involved in pioneering the characterization of the chromatin in Chlorella and I have been exploring the epigenetic bases of the adaptation to different trophic regimes. In Arabidopsis thaliana, I have been studying the role of H3K27me3 in metabolism and stress-response, by contrast to its well-known role in development. I aim at investigating the involvement of H3K27me3 in the operational or stress-responsive modulation of the expression of active genes and identifying the chromatin determinants associated with different regulatory modes mediated by the facultative heterochromatin.
Through my career, I have evidenced a bright interest in studying complex systems with holistic approaches to better understand how sessile organisms such as plants cope with their environment. I have carried out a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Nathalie Verbruggen about the interactions between the response to magnesium deficiency and the circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana. A turning point in my academic journey was a bioinformatic project under the mentorship of Prof. Matthieu Defrance, where I developed a R-package implementing a machine learning approach to predict condition- and tissue-specific transcription factor binding sites in Arabidopsis, rice and tomato. This pointed out epigenomic features as major predictors of transcription factor binding sites and guided me towards the development of innovative tools that could be useful to my research and the community. Currently, I am setting a method of prediction of active genes based on bulk RNA-Seq data and curating a database allowing me to explore the condition and tissue-specificity of the expression of alternative transcripts. Overall, my research aims to advance our understanding of mechanisms of gene regulation in plants during their life stages and under situations of stress, with potential applications in biotechnology and sustainable agriculture.
If you are interested in a Bsc or Msc thesis or a collaboration, feel free to contact us.
→ Github
https://github.com/RiviereQuentin/Wimtrap
→ Selected publications
Samo, N., Trejo-Arellano, M.G., Gahurová, L., Erban A., Ebert, A., Rivière, Q., Kubásek, J., Aflaki, F, Mondeková, H.H., Schlereth, A., Dubois, A., Zhou, M., Novák, O., Šantrůček, J., Bouyer, D., Roudier, F., Kopka, J., & Mozgová, I., Polycomb repressive complex 2 facilitates the transition from heterotrophy to photoautotrophy during seedling emergence, The Plant Cell, 2025, 37, 7, koaf148. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12236341/
Petroll R., Papareddy, R.K., Krela, R., Laigle, A., Rivière, Q., Bišova, K., Mozgová, I., & Borg, M. The Expansion and Diversification of Epigenetic Regulatory Networks Underpins Major Transitions in the Evolution of Land Plants, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2025, 42, 4, msaf064. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11982613/
Rivière, Q., Corso, M., Ciortan, M., Noël, G., Verbruggen, N., & Defrance, M, Exploiting Genomic Features to Improve the Prediction of Transcription Factor-Binding Sites in Plants, Plant and Cell Physiology, 2022, 63, 10, 1457–1473. https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/352290/3/Riviere_et_al.pdf
Rivière, Q., Xiao, Q., Gutsch, A., Defrance, M., Webb, A. A. R., & Verbruggen, N., Mg deficiency interacts with the circadian clock and phytochromes pathways in Arabidopsis. Annals of Applied Biology, 2020, 178, 2, 387–399. https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/322914/3/MgDeficiencyInPlantsLightClock.pdf
Rivière Q., Raskin V., de Melo R., Boutet S., Corso M., Defrance M., Webb A.A.R., Verbruggen N., & Anoman, A.D, Effects of light regimes on circadian gene co-expression networks in Arabidopsis thaliana, Plant Direct, 2024, 8, 8, e70001. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11636548/