Publications by Alexandre Louis André Persat

Antagonistic response regulators spatially regulate receptor methylation in the Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pil-Chp surface sensing system

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Marco Julian Kühn

Most bacterial chemosensory systems encode enzymes that are predicted to methylate and demethylate their chemoreceptors to control signaling activity. Here, we show that a predicted methyltransferase (PilK) and methylesterase (ChpB) methylate and demethyla ...

2025

Decoding host-microbe interactions with engineered human organoids

Alexandre Louis André Persat

As the antimicrobial resistance crisis becomes a reality, we are only now realizing we lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms by which major pathogens infect their human host. To address this, we must employ novel methodologies that allow us to ...

SPRINGERNATURE2025

Revitalizing antibiotic discovery and development through in vitro modelling of in-patient conditions

John McKinney, Alexandre Louis André Persat

In vitro models mimicking in-patient conditions have the potential to yield exciting opportunities for antibiotic research and revitalize future antibiotic discovery and development. ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Pseudomonas aeruginosa faces a fitness trade-off between mucosal colonization and antibiotic tolerance during airway infection

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Tamara Rossy, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Evangelia Vagena

Pseudomonas aeruginosa frequently causes antibiotic-recalcitrant pneumonia, but the mechanisms driving its adaptation during human infections remain unclear. To reveal the selective pressures and adaptation strategies at the mucosal surface, here we invest ...

2024

Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron metabolic activity decreases with polysaccharide molecular weight

Tom Ian Battin, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Jeremy Pak Hei Wong

The human colon hosts hundreds of commensal bacterial species, many of which ferment complex dietary carbohydrates. To transform these fibers into metabolically accessible compounds, microbes often express a series of dedicated enzymes homologous to the st ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

Pseudomonas aeruginosa type IV pili actively induce mucus contraction to form biofilms in tissue-engineered human airways

Bart Deplancke, Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Tamara Rossy, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Jörn Pezoldt

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes antibiotic-recalcitrant pneumonia by forming biofilms in the respiratory tract. Despite extensive in vitro experimentation, how P. aeruginosa forms biofilms at the airway mucosa is unresolved. To inv ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2023

Fluid flow structures gut microbiota biofilm communities by distributing public goods

Tom Ian Battin, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Jeremy Pak Hei Wong

Bacterial gut commensals experience a biologically and physically complex mucosal environment. While many chemical factors mediate the composition and structure of these microbial communities, less is known about the role of mechanics. Here, we demonstrate ...

National Academy of Sciences2023

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

Two antagonistic response regulators control Pseudomonas aeruginosa polarization during mechanotaxis

Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Marco Julian Kühn, Joanne Netter Engel

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa adapts to solid surfaces to enhance virulence and infect its host. Type IV pili (T4P), long and thin filaments that power surface-specific twitching motility, allow single cells to sense surfaces and contro ...

WILEY2023

Material Substrate Physical Properties Control Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Architecture

Alice Cont, Alexandre Louis André Persat

The biofilm lifestyle is the most widespread survival strategy in the bacterial world. Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms cause chronic infections and are highly recalcitrant to antimicrobials. The genetic requirements allowing P. aeruginosa to grow into biof ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Archaeal type IV pili stabilize Haloferax volcanii biofilms in flow

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

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

Engineering Agrobacterium tumefaciens Adhesion to Target Cells

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Jeremy Pak Hei Wong, Alix Kim Lan Pham

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a plant pathogen commonly repurposed for genetic modification of crops. Despite its versatility, it remains inefficient at transferring DNA to many hosts, including to animal cells. Like many pathogens, physical contact between ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

KRAB zinc finger protein ZNF676 controls the transcriptional influence of LTR12-related endogenous retrovirus sequences

Didier Trono, Priscilla Turelli, Julien Léonard Duc, Jonas Caspar De Tribolet-Hardy, Alexandra Iouranova, Michaël Imbeault, Alexandre Coudray, Tamara Rossy, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Delphine Yvette L Grun

Background Transposable element-embedded regulatory sequences (TEeRS) and their KRAB-containing zinc finger protein (KZFP) controllers are increasingly recognized as modulators of gene expression. We aim to characterize the contribution of this system to g ...

2022

The wall-less bacterium Spiroplasma poulsonii builds a polymeric cytoskeleton composed of interacting MreB isoforms

Bruno Lemaitre, Florent François Masson, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat

A rigid cell wall defines the morphology of most bacteria. MreB, a bacterial homologue of actin, plays a major role in coordinating cell wall biogenesis and defining cell shape. Spiroplasma are wall-less bacteria that robustly grow with a characteristic he ...

CELL PRESS2021

Time-Resolved Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy for Three-Dimensional Tracking of Nanoscale Cell Surface Dynamics

Aleksandra Radenovic, Daniel Constam, Georg Fantner, Adrian Pascal Nievergelt, Samuel Mendes Leitão, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Katarina Pinjusic, Barney Frederick Drake, Vytautas Navikas, Charlène Cécile Geneviève Brillard

Nanocharacterization plays a vital role in understanding the complex nanoscale organization of cells and organelles. Understanding cellular function requires high-resolution information about how the cellular structures evolve over time. A number of techni ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2021

Roadmap on emerging concepts in the physical biology of bacterial biofilms: from surface sensing to community formation

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Marco Julian Kühn

Bacterial biofilms are communities of bacteria that exist as aggregates that can adhere to surfaces or be free-standing. This complex, social mode of cellular organization is fundamental to the physiology of microbes and often exhibits surprising behavior. ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

The Mammalian Membrane Microenvironment Regulates the Sequential Attachment of Bacteria to Host Cells

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Jeremy Pak Hei Wong

Pathogen attachment to host tissue is critical in the progress of many infections. Bacteria use adhesion in vivo to stabilize colonization and subsequently regulate the deployment of contact-dependent virulence traits. To specifically target host cells, th ...

2021

Mechanotaxis directs Pseudomonas aeruginosa twitching motility

Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Jose Negrete Jr, Marco Julian Kühn, Joanne Netter Engel

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa explores surfaces using twitching motility powered by retractile extracellu-lar filaments called type IV pili (T4P). Single cells twitch by sequen-tial T4P extension, attachment, and retraction. How single ...

National Academy of Sciences2021

Monodisperse Selectively Permeable Hydrogel Capsules Made from Single Emulsion Drops

Huachuan Du, Esther Amstad, Alice Cont, Mathias Steinacher, Alexandre Louis André Persat

Capsules are often used to protect chemical and biological entities from the environment, to control the timing and location of their release, or to facilitate the collection of waste. Their performance depends on the thickness and composition of their she ...

2021

Biofilms deform soft surfaces and disrupt epithelia

Tamara Rossy, Alice Cont, Alexandre Louis André Persat

During chronic infections and in microbiota, bacteria predominantly colonize their hosts as multicellular structures called biofilms. A common assumption is that biofilms exclusively interact with their hosts biochemically. However, the contributions of me ...

2020