Publications related to Microbial intelligence

Stability of influenza A virus in droplets and aerosols is heightened by the presence of commensal respiratory bacteria

Tamar Kohn, Athanasios Nenes, Ghislain Gilles Jean-Michel Motos, Htet Kyi Wynn, Kalliopi Violaki, Céline Terrettaz, Aline Laetitia Schaub, Walter Hugentobler, Shannon Christa David, Laura José Costa Henriques, Daniel Scott Nolan, Marta Augugliaro

Aerosol transmission remains a major challenge for control of respiratory viruses, particularly those causing recurrent epidemics, like influenza A virus (IAV). These viruses are rarely expelled alone, but instead are embedded in a consortium of microorgan ...

American Society for Microbiology2024

Biofilm formation on human immune cells is a multicellular predation strategy of Vibrio cholerae

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Sofya Mikhaleva

Biofilm formation is generally recognized as a bacterial defense mechanism against environmental threats, including antibiotics, bacteriophages, and leukocytes of the human immune system. Here, we show that for the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, biofilm f ...

CELL PRESS2023

Archaeal type IV pili stabilize Haloferax volcanii biofilms in flow

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Pascal Damian Odermatt

Multicellular communities of contiguous cells attached to solid surfaces called biofilms represent a common microbial strategy to improve resilience in adverse environments.1-3 While bacterial biofilms have been under intense investigation, whether archaea ...

Cell Press2023

The Effects of Spatial Organization and Fluid Flow on the Social Interactions in Microbial Communities

Jeremy Pak Hei Wong

Bacteria often engage in social interactions with neighbouring bacteria. Ecosystems which are subjected to social interactions have been widely studied in well mixed settings such as test tubes, allowing us to identify the cellular components contributing ...

EPFL2023

Genomic and metabolic adaptations of biofilms to ecological windows of opportunity in glacier-fed streams

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Matteo Tolosano, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Michail Styllas, Martina Andrea Schön

In glacier-fed streams, ecological windows of opportunity allow complex microbial biofilms to develop and transiently form the basis of the food web, thereby controlling key ecosystem processes. Using metagenome-assembled genomes, we unravel strategies tha ...

Springer2022

Probing the growth and mechanical properties of Bacillus subtilis biofilms through genetic mutation strategies

Chen Zhang, Lei Wang

Bacterial communities form biofilms on various surfaces by synthesizing a cohesive and protective extracellular matrix, and these biofilms protect microorganisms against harsh environmental conditions. Bacillus subtilis is a widely used experimental specie ...

KEAI PUBLISHING LTD2022

Electrochemical imaging of metabolic activity in tissue and biofilms

Sorour Darvishi

Non-invasive and semi-invasive bioimaging is of great interest for the rapid diagnosis and efficient as well as specific treatments of biological systems affecting human health, such as cancer tissue and biofilms. Electrochemical bioimaging is one of the d ...

EPFL2022

Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mechanosensing through label-free imaging of type IV pili

Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà

Bacteria are ubiquitously found in all sorts of environment. They're found in the ocean, soil, or even in our guts or on our skin. Independently of their niche, they can transition from a planktonic state were they freely swim in an aqueous environment to ...

EPFL2022

The architecture of benthic biofilms - Linking hydraulics to spatially structured processes

Anna Depetris

Biofilms are spatially structured ecosystems, characterized by patterns and architectural features determined by the interplay between endogenous and exogenous processes. As in many other structured ecosystems, the characterization of spatial interactions ...

EPFL2021

The influence of the crowding assumptions in biofilm simulations

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Liliana Angeles Martinez

Author summary In nature, many organisms grow in crowded biofilms that protect against stressful conditions, making their control/eradication a challenge. Modeling these microbial systems is a valuable tool for studying the interactions among cells and exp ...

2021

Spatio-temporal modeling of the crowding conditions and metabolic variability in microbial communities

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Liliana Angeles Martinez

The metabolic capabilities of the species and the local environment shape the microbial interactions in a community either through the exchange of metabolic products or the competition for the resources. Cells are often arranged in close proximity to each ...

2021

Dynamic persistence of UPEC intracellular bacterial communities in a human bladder-chip model of urinary tract infection

John McKinney, Graham Knott, Neeraj Dhar, François Signorino-Gelo, Vivek Vijay Thacker, Kunal Sharma, Thomas Marie Simonet

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) proliferate within superficial bladder umbrella cells to form intracellular bacterial communities (IBCs) during early stages of urinary tract infections. However, the dynamic responses of IBCs to host stresses and anti ...

2021

Atomic Force Microscopy of Biological Systems: Quantitative Imaging and Nanomotion Detection

Petar Stupar

The core of this thesis is the application of different modalities of atomic force microscopy to study living systems. After a brief introduction, quantitative imaging state of the art is presented and the applications for mammalian, plant, bacterial, and ...

EPFL2018

Light availability impacts structure and function of phototrophic stream biofilms across domains and trophic levels

Tom Ian Battin

Phototrophic biofilms are ubiquitous in freshwater and marine environments where they are critical for biogeochemical cycling, food webs and in industrial applications. In streams, phototrophic biofilms dominate benthic microbial life and harbour an immens ...

Blackwell Publishing Ltd2018

Ecological strategies and metabolic trade-offs of complex environmental biofilms

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter

Microorganisms aggregated into matrix-enclosed biofilms dominate microbial life in most natural, engineered, and medical systems. Despite this, the ecological adaptations and metabolic trade-offs of the formation of complex biofilms are currently poorly un ...

Nature Publishing Group2017

Validation of an integrative methodology to assess and monitor reductive dechlorination of chlorinated ethenes in contaminated aquifers

Christof Holliger, Pierre Rossi, Sonia Estelle Tarnawski

Bioremediation of tetra-and trichloroethene-contaminated aquifers is requently hampered due to incomplete dechlorination to the more toxic dichloroethene (DCE) and vinyl chloride (VC), indicating insufficient knowledge about the biological mechanisms relat ...

2016

Seasonal influence of climate manipulation on microbial community structure and function in mountain soils

Alexandre Buttler, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Thomas Spiegelberger, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

Microbial communities drive soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition through the production of a variety of extracellular enzymes. Climate change impact on soil microbial communities and soil enzymatic activities can therefore strongly affect SOM turnover, ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2015

Nitrogen limitation and microbial diversity at the treeline

Alexandre Buttler, Julien Roy, Aurélie Thébault

Tree growth limitation at treeline has mainly been studied in terms of carbon limitation while effects and mechanisms of potential nitrogen (N) limitation are barely known, especially in the southern hemisphere. We investigated how soil abiotic properties ...

Nordic Ecological Society2014

Linking bacterial population dynamics and nutrient removal in the granular sludge biofilm ecosystem engineered for wastewater treatment

Christof Holliger, David Gregory Weissbrodt, Noam Shani

Intensive nutrient removal from wastewater in anaerobic–aerobic systems using granular sludge should rely on optimal balances at biofilm and microbial ecology levels. This study targets the impacts of reactor characteristics and fluctuations in operation c ...

Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford2014

Biophysical controls on cluster dynamics and architectural differentiation of microbial biofilms in contrasting flow environments

Andrea Rinaldo, Enrico Bertuzzo, Tom Ian Battin, Lorenzo Mari, Samir Suweis

Ecology, with a traditional focus on plants and animals, seeks to understand the mechanisms underlying structure and dynamics of communities. In microbial ecology, the focus is changing from planktonic communities to attached biofilms that dominate microbi ...

Wiley-Blackwell2013