Publications related to Insect ecology

Mechanistic Understanding of Neurobehavioral Effects of Insecticides on the Larvae of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Due to conservation of neuronal functioning across phyla, molecular targets of insecticides are similar in insects and vertebrates. Insecticides thus pose a risk to aquatic vertebrates, such as fish, and potentially cause neurotoxic effects. Although these ...

EPFL2022

Rapid molecular evolution of Spiroplasma symbionts of Drosophila

Bruno Lemaitre, Florent François Masson

Spiroplasma is a genus of Mollicutes whose members include plant pathogens, insect pathogens and endosymbionts of animals. Spiroplasma phenotypes have been repeatedly observed to be spontaneously lost in Drosophila cultures, and several studies have docume ...

2021

Transformation of the Drosophila Sex-Manipulative Endosymbiont Spiroplasma poulsonii and Persisting Hurdles for Functional Genetic Studies

Bruno Lemaitre, Chloé Christiane Laurence Jollivet, Florent François Masson

Insects are frequently infected by bacterial symbionts that greatly affect their physiology and ecology. Most of these endosymbionts are, however, barely tractable outside their native host, rendering functional genetics studies difficult or impossible. Sp ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2020

Role of Nimrod receptors in the Drosophila melanogaster cellular immune response

Claudia Melcarne

The use of modern molecular biology tools and simple but powerful tractable model organisms such as Drosophila has contributed significantly to our recent advances in the innate immunity field, notably phagocytosis. Since 2001, many phagocytic transmembran ...

EPFL2020

Two Nimrod receptors, NimC1 and Eater, synergistically contribute to bacterial phagocytosis in Drosophila melanogaster

Bruno Lemaitre, Jan Paul Dudzic, Elodie Julie Virginie Ramond, Andrew Jonathan Bretscher, Claudia Melcarne

Eater and NimC1 are transmembrane receptors of the Drosophila Nimrod family, specifically expressed in haemocytes, the insect blood cells. Previous ex vivo and in vivoRNAi studies have pointed to their role in the phagocytosis of bacteria. Here, we have cr ...

2019

Device and method for sorting biological entities

Francesco Mondada, Frank Bonnet, Norbert Crot, Marcin Antoni Sylwestrzak

A device for sorting biological entities is disclosed. The device comprises a channel to canalize the biological entities and a selector having slots to accommodate said entities. Means for detecting and analysing an optical parameter of the biological ent ...

2019

The double-edged toxins : how Spiroplasma Ribosome-Inactivating Proteins affect Drosophila melanogaster life history traits

Mario Gonzalo Garcia Arraez

Many insect species are associated with endosymbiotic bacteria which have the particularity of living within host tissues. Endosymbionts benefit from this stable and nutritious environment, while providing ecological advantages to their host, such as prote ...

EPFL2018

Form - function relationships in dragonfly mandibles under an evolutionary perspective

Alessandra Patera

Functional requirements may constrain phenotypic diversification or foster it. For insect mouthparts, the quantification of the relationship between shape and function in an evolutionary framework remained largely unexplored. Here, the question of a functi ...

Royal Soc2017

Infection Dynamics and Immune Response in a Newly Described Drosophila-Trypanosomatid Association

Bruno Lemaitre, Anna Dostalova

Trypanosomatid parasites are significant causes of human disease and are ubiquitous in insects. Despite the importance of Drosophila melanogaster as a model of infection and immunity and a long awareness that trypanosomatid infection is common in the genus ...

American Society for Microbiology2015

Genome Sequence of the Drosophila melanogaster Male-Killing Spiroplasma Strain MSRO Endosymbiont

Bruno Lemaitre, Ray Marcel Marin Florez, Juan Camilo Paredes Escobar, Jeremy Keith Herren

Spiroplasmas are helical and motile members of a cell wall-less eubacterial group called Mollicutes. Although all spiroplasmas are associated with arthropods, they exhibit great diversity with respect to both their modes of transmission and their effects o ...

American Society for Microbiology2015

A simple plasmid-based transient gene expression method using High Five cells

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Lucia Baldi Unser, Virginie Bachmann, Xiao Shen

The High Five (H5) cell line, derived from the lepidopteran Trichoplusia ni, is one of the major insect cell hosts for the production of recombinant proteins using the baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS). Here, we describe a simple polyethylenimine ...

Elsevier2015

Development of plasmid-based expression technology for rapid and sustained production of recombinant proteins in insect cells

Xiao Shen

Due to the high demand for heterogeneous protein production in insect cells, we have established efficient methods for plasmid-based transient gene expression (TGE) in various insect cell lines, including commonly used Spodoptera cell lines Sf9 and HighFiv ...

EPFL2014

Helical-Track Bioreactors for Bacterial, Mammalian and Insect Cell Cultures

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Lucia Baldi Unser, Stéphanie Tissot, Clara Joséphine Douet

We investigated the cultivation of bacterial, mammalian and insect cells in an orbitally-shaken 250-mL disposable tube that incorporates a helical track (HT) on its inside wall. The mass transfer coefﬁcient of oxygen (kLa) was 200%–400% higher in the HT tu ...

2013

Study of the improved Sf9 transient gene expression process

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Lucia Baldi Unser, Xiao Shen

Insect cells have been widely used for the production of recombinant proteins using recombinant baculovirus for gene delivery [1]. To simplify protein production in insect cells, we have previously described a method, based on transient gene expression (TG ...

2013

Vertical transmission of a Drosophila endosymbiont via cooption of the yolk transport and internalization machinery

Bruno Lemaitre, Fanny Schüpfer, Juan Camilo Paredes Escobar, Jeremy Keith Herren

Spiroplasma is a diverse bacterial clade that includes many vertically transmitted insect endosymbionts, including Spiroplasma poulsonii, a natural endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster. These bacteria persist in the hemolymph of their adult host and exh ...

American Society for Microbiology2013

A NanoDrop-based method for rapid determination of viability decline in suspension cultures of animal cells

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Lucia Baldi Unser, Mélanie Hubert

We describe a rapid method for monitoring the cell growth and decline phases in suspension cultures of animal cells. During the cell growth phase, ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing components in the medium are consumed, but at later times as cells begin to die, U ...

Elsevier2012

POLLEN CLUMPING AND WIND DISPERSAL IN AN INVASIVE ANGIOSPERM

Marc Parlange, Charles Vivant Ignacio Meneveau, Michael David Martin

Pollen dispersal is a fundamental aspect of plant reproductive biology that maintains connectivity between spatially separated populations. Pollen clumping, a characteristic feature of insect-pollinated plants, is generally assumed to be a detriment to win ...

2009

Protection against Mycobacterium ulcerans lesion development by exposure to aquatic insect saliva

Stewart Cole

BACKGROUND: Buruli ulcer is a severe human skin disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. This disease is primarily diagnosed in West Africa with increasing incidence. Antimycobacterial drug therapy is relatively effective during the preulcerative stage of ...

2007

Coevolution of active vision and feature selection

Dario Floreano, Eric Sauser, Toshifumi Kato, Davide Marocco

We show that complex visual tasks, such as position- and size-invariant shape recognition and navigation in the environment, can be tackled with simple architectures generated by a coevolutionary process of active vision and feature selection. Behavioral m ...

2004