Classification and inference of gene networks from very short time series : Application to the modeling of plant transcriptional memory associated with repeated sound stimulations ; Classification et inférence de réseaux de gènes à partir de séries temporelles très courtes : application à la modélisation de la mémoire transcriptionnelle végétale associée à des stimulations sonores répétées

Advancements in new sequencing technologies have paved the way for accessing dynamic gene expression data on a genome-wide scale. Classical ensemble approaches traditionally used in biology fall short of comprehending the underlying the complex molecular mechanisms. Consequently, developing analytical methods to understand further such data poses a significant challenge for current biology. However, the technical and experimental costs associated with transcriptomic data severely limit the dimension of real datasets and their analytical methods. Throughout my thesis, at the intersection of applied mathematics and plant biology, I focused on implementing an inference method for dynamic regulatory networks tailored to a real and original dataset describing the effect of repeated acoustic stimulations on genes expressions of Arabidopsis thaliana. I proposed a clustering method adapted to very-short time series that groups genes based on temporal variations, adjusting the data dimension for network inference. The comparison of this method with classical methods showed that it was the most suitable for very-short time series with irregular time points. For the network inference, I proposed a model that takes into account intra-class variability and integrates a constant term explicitly describing the external stimulation of the system. The evaluation of these classification and inference methods was conducted on simulated and real-time series data, which established their high performance in terms of accuracy, recall, and prediction error. The implementation of these methods to study the priming of the immune response of Arabidopsis thaliana through repeated sound waves. We demonstrated the formation of a transcriptional memory associated with stimulations, transitioning the plant from a naïve state to a primed and more resistant state within 3 days. This resistant state, maintained by stimulations and transcription factor cascades, enhances the plant's immune resistance by triggering the expression of resistance ...