Publications by Christof Holliger

Multiple extracellular polymeric substance pathways transcribed by Accumulibacter and the flanking community during aerobic granule formation and after influent modification

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger, Pilar Natalia Rodilla Ramírez, Laetitia Janine Andrée Cardona, Jaspreet Singh Saini

Aerobic granular sludge is a biological wastewater treatment process in which a microbial community forms a granular biofilm. The role of Candidatus Accumulibacter in the production of a biofilm matrix composed of extracellular polymeric substances was stu ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2025

MiDAS 5: Global diversity of bacteria and archaea in anaerobic digesters

Christof Holliger

Anaerobic digestion of organic waste into methane and carbon dioxide (biogas) is carried out by complex microbial communities. Here, we use full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing of 285 full-scale anaerobic digesters (ADs) to expand our knowledge about diver ...

Nature Research2024

Conditional essentiality of the 11-subunit complex I-like enzyme in strict anaerobes: the case of Desulfitobacterium hafniense strain DCB-2

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Florence Armand, Romain Hamelin, Mathilde Stéphanie Willemin

In oxidative phosphorylation, respiratory complex I serves as an entry point in the electron transport chain for electrons generated in catabolic processes in the form of NADH. An ancestral version of the complex, lacking the NADH-oxidising module, is enco ...

Frontiers Media SA2024

Microbial genome collection of aerobic granular sludge cultivated in sequencing batch reactors using different carbon source mixtures

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger, Pilar Natalia Rodilla Ramírez, Laetitia Janine Andrée Cardona, Jaspreet Singh Saini, Ruizhe Pei

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) consists of a microbial consortium that has an important role in wastewater treatment. This study investigates AGS microorganisms cultivated in a laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactor. Metagenomic sequencing was conducted ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

Sulfurospirillum diekertiae sp. nov., a tetrachloroethene-respiring bacterium isolated from contaminated soil

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Junxiong Wang

Two anaerobic, tetrachloroethene- (PCE-) respiring bacterial isolates, designated strain ACSDCE T and strain ACSTCE, were characterized using a polyphasic approach. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, motile, non-spore-forming and shared a vibrioid- to spirill ...

2023

Structure of a membrane-bound menaquinol:organohalide oxidoreductase

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Lorenzo Cimmino, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo

Organohalide-respiring bacteria are key organisms for the bioremediation of soils and aquifers contaminated with halogenated organic compounds. The major players in this process are respiratory reductive dehalogenases, corrinoid enzymes that use organohali ...

Nature Research2023

Proteome adaptations of the organohalide-respiring Desulfitobacterium hafniense strain DCB-2 to various energy metabolisms

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Florence Armand, Romain Hamelin, Mathilde Stéphanie Willemin

IntroductionDesulfitobacterium hafniense was isolated for its ability to use organohalogens as terminal electron acceptors via organohalide respiration (OHR). In contrast to obligate OHR bacteria, Desulfitobacterium spp. show a highly versatile energy meta ...

Frontiers Media SA2023

Disentangle genus microdiversity within a complex microbial community by using a multi-distance long-read binning method: example of Candidatus Accumulibacter

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Marco Pagni, Simon Marius Jean Poirier

Complete genomes can be recovered from metagenomes by assembling and binning DNA sequences into metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs). Yet, the presence of microdiversity can hamper the assembly and binning processes, possibly yielding chimeric, highly fragm ...

WILEY2022

Assessing the value of kinetic results from biochemical methane potential tests: Reproducibility from a large inter-laboratory study

Christof Holliger

Kinetic information extracted from biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests is often reported but its value is unclear. Inter-laboratory reproducibility provides a useful indication of its value. Here we extracted estimates of the first-order rate constan ...

2022

Characterization of the membrane protein complexes responsible for reductive dehalogenation

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Lorenzo Cimmino

ELSEVIER2022

Stoichiometry of the Gene Products From the Tetrachloroethene Reductive Dehalogenase Operon pceABCT

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Adrian Schmid, Lorenzo Cimmino

Organohalide respiration (OHR) is a bacterial anaerobic process that uses halogenated compounds, e.g., tetrachloroethene (PCE), as terminal electron acceptors. Our model organisms are Dehalobacter restrictus strain PER-K23, an obligate OHR bacterium (OHRB) ...

Frontiers Media SA2022

It takes two times two to tango - cryoEM structure resolution of the membrane-bound tetrachloroethene reductive dehalogenase complex

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Lorenzo Cimmino, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo

ELSEVIER2022

Towards a standardization of biomethane potential tests: a commentary

Christof Holliger

Inter-laboratory reproducibility of biomethane potential (BMP) is dismal, with differences in BMP values for the same sample exceeding a factor of two in some cases. A large group of BMP researchers directly addressed this problem during a workshop held in ...

IWA PUBLISHING2021

Power and Limitations of Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) Tests

Christof Holliger

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2020

Hybrid Transcriptional Regulators for the Screening of Target DNA Motifs in Organohalide-Respiring Bacteria

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Marie Vingerhoets, Mathilde Stéphanie Willemin

The bioremediation of persistent organohalide molecules under anoxic conditions mostly relies on the bacterial process called organohalide respiration (OHR). Organohalide-respiring bacteria (OHRB) are phylogenetically diverse anaerobic bacteria that share ...

Frontiers Media SA2020

Multistability and Reversibility of Aerobic Granular Sludge Microbial Communities Upon Changes From Simple to Complex Synthetic Wastewater and Back

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is a promising alternative wastewater treatment to the conventional activated sludge system allowing space and energy saving. Basic understanding of AGS has mainly been obtained using simple wastewater containing acetate and p ...

Frontiers Media SA2020

Improving Inter-Laboratory Reproducibility in Measurement of Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP)

Christof Holliger

Biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests used to determine the ultimate methane yield of organic substrates are not sufficiently standardized to ensure reproducibility among laboratories. In this contribution, a standardized BMP protocol was tested in a l ...

2020

Impact of iron- and/or sulfate-reduction on a cis-1,2-dichloroethene and vinyl chloride respiring bacterial consortium: experiments and model-based interpretation

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Alexandra Marie Murray

Process understanding of microbial communities containing organohalide-respiring bacteria (OHRB) is important for effective bioremediation of chlorinated ethenes. The impact of iron and sulfate reduction on cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cDCE) and vinyl chloride ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2020

A modeling approach integrating microbial activity, mass transfer, and geochemical processes to interpret biological assays: An example for PCE degradation in a multi-phase batch setup

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Alexandra Marie Murray

The rate at which organic contaminants can be degraded in aquatic environments is not only dependent upon specific degrading bacteria, but also upon the composition of the microbial community, mass transfer of the contaminant, and abiotic processes that oc ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2019

Chlorinated ethene plume evolution after source thermal remediation: Determination of degradation rates and mechanisms

Christof Holliger, Julien Maillard, Jérémy Zimmermann, Alexandra Marie Murray

The extent, mechanism(s), and rate of chlorinated ethene degradation in a large tetrachloroethene (PCE) plume were investigated in an extensive sampling campaign. Multiple lines of evidence for this degradation were explored, including compound-specific is ...

ELSEVIER2019