Publications related to Models and Algorithms for Whole-Genome Evolution and their Use in Phylogenetic Inference

The microbial genomics of glacier-fed streams: adaptations to an extreme ecosystem

Glacier-fed streams are the cold, ultra-oligotrophic, and unstable streams that are fed by glacial meltwater. Despite these extreme conditions, they harbour a diverse and abundant microbial diversity that develops into biofilms, covering the boulders and s ...

EPFL2024

Genome sequences of Vibrio cholerae strains isolated in the DRC between 2009 and 2012

Melanie Blokesch, Sandrine Stutzmann, Natalia Carolina Drebes Dorr, Alexandre Lemopoulos

Vibrio cholerae has caused seven cholera pandemics in the past two centuries. The seventh and ongoing pandemic has been particularly severe on the African continent. Here, we report long read-based genome sequences of six V. cholerae strains isolated in th ...

2024

Comparison of Three Viral Nucleic Acid Preamplification Pipelines for Sewage Viral Metagenomics

Tamar Kohn, Xavier Fernandez Cassi

Viral metagenomics is a useful tool for detecting multiple human viruses in urban sewage. However, more refined protocols are required for its effective use in disease surveillance. In this study, we investigated the performance of three different preampli ...

2024

Ancestral genome reconstruction enhances transposable element annotation by identifying degenerate integrants

Didier Trono, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Wayo Matsushima

Growing evidence indicates that transposable elements (TEs) play important roles in evolution by providing genomes with coding and non-coding sequences. Identification of TE-derived functional elements, however, has relied on TE annotations in individual s ...

2024

Single-mitosis dissection of acute and chronic DNA mutagenesis and repair

Christina Ernst

How chronic mutational processes and punctuated bursts of DNA damage drive evolution of the cancer genome is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate a strategy to disentangle and quantify distinct mechanisms underlying genome evolution in single cells, dur ...

Nature Portfolio2024

The cost of adaptability: resource availability constrains functional stability under pulsed disturbances

Hannes Markus Peter

Global change exposes ecosystems to changes in the frequency, magnitude, and concomitancy of disturbances, which impact the composition and functioning of these systems. Here, we experimentally evaluate the effects of salinity disturbances and eutrophicati ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

Reconstruction and analysis of genome-scale metabolic networks in single organisms and microbial communities

Evangelia Vagena

Microorganisms are a key component in the chain of life. They are essential for agriculture, produce a large proportion of oxygen, and play a central role in the cycle of elements. Microorganisms are widely used in the production of food and alcoholic beve ...

EPFL2024

Multi-well plate lid for single-step pooling of 96 samples for high-throughput barcode-based sequencing

Bart Deplancke, Daniel Migliozzi, Hüseyin Baris Atakan, Mustafa Demir, Riccardo Dainese, Daniel Alpern, Dariia Gudkova, Gilles Weder

High-throughput transcriptomics is of increasing fundamental biological and clinical interest. The generation of molecular data from large collections of samples, such as biobanks and drug libraries, is boosting the development of new biomarkers and treatm ...

Springer2024

Bacterial diversity dominates variable macrophage responses of tuberculosis patients in Tanzania

Jacques Fellay, Zhi Ming Xu

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) comprises nine human-adapted lineages that differ in their geographical distribution. Local adaptation of specific MTBC genotypes to the respective human host population has been invoked in this context. We aim ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Benchmarking informatics approaches for virus discovery: caution is needed when combining in silico identification methods

Jaspreet Singh Saini

Understanding the ecological impacts of viruses on natural and engineered ecosystems relies on the accurate identification of viral sequences from community sequencing data. To maximize viral recovery from metagenomes, researchers frequently combine viral ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

Anisotropic Adaptive Finite Elements for a p-Laplacian Problem

Marco Picasso, Paride Passelli

The p-Laplacian problem -del & sdot; ((mu + |del u|(p-2))del u) = f is considered, where mu is a given positive number. An anisotropic a posteriori residual-based error estimator is presented. The error estimator is shown to be equivalent, up to higher ord ...

Walter De Gruyter Gmbh2024

Impact of phylogeny on structural contact inference from protein sequence data

Nicola Dietler, Umberto Lupo, Anne-Florence Raphaëlle Bitbol

Local and global inference methods have been developed to infer structural contacts from multiple sequence alignments of homologous proteins. They rely on correlations in amino acid usage at contacting sites. Because homologous proteins share a common ance ...

ROYAL SOC2023

Landscapes of DNA Mechanics and Genomes

Thomas Antonin Zwahlen

The local physical properties - such as shape and flexibility - of the DNA double-helix is today widely believed to be influenced by nucleic acid sequence in a non-trivial way. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that these properties play a role in many ...

EPFL2023

PSGL-1 is an evolutionarily conserved antiviral restriction factor

Chao Jiang, Ying Liu

The arms race between viruses and their hosts shaped the evolutionary history and the genome composition of both parties. Restriction factors are the first-line antiviral effectors encoded by the host genomes and are often conserved through evolution to pr ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Development of multiplexed single-molecule imaging techniques to study chromatin invasion dynamics of chromatin effector proteins

Kristina Makasheva

DNA-binding proteins physically interact with the DNA and directly affect genomic functions. The eukaryotic genome is compacted into chromatin, limiting the DNA access to nuclear factors. In this Ph.D. thesis, I explored the dynamic mechanisms, that allow ...

EPFL2023

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

Chromatin modules and their implication in genomic organization and gene regulation

Bart Deplancke, Judith Franziska Kribelbauer, Guido Van Mierlo

Regulation of gene expression is a complex but highly guided process. While genomic technologies and computational approaches have allowed high-throughput mapping of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) and their interactions in 3D, their precise role in regulat ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON2023

Genomic insights into the coupling of a Chlorella-like microeukaryote and sulfur bacteria in the chemocline of permanently stratified Lake Cadagno

Christel Sybille Hassler

Meromictic Lake Cadagno is a permanently stratified system with a persistent microbial bloom within the oxic-anoxic boundary called the chemocline. The association between oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis within the chemocline has been known for at l ...

SPRINGERNATURE2023

Inborn errors of type I interferon immunity in patients with symptomatic acute hepatitis E

Jacques Fellay

Background and Aims:The clinical spectrum of human infection by HEV ranges from asymptomatic to severe acute hepatitis. Furthermore, HEV can cause diverse neurological manifestations, especially Parsonage-Turner syndrome. Here, we used a large-scale human ...

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins2023

Host-Pathogen Interactions Through the Genomic Lens

Zhi Ming Xu

Hosts and pathogens are involved in a long-standing evolutionary arms race characterized by successive rounds of evolution. Specifically, while hosts evolve resistance against infections, pathogens adapt to re-establish virulence. Since the signatures of t ...

EPFL2023