Publications related to Innate immunity against retroviral pathogens: from an ambiguous genetic self to novel therapeutic approaches

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 conceptual foundations of innate immunity: Taking stock 30 years later

Bruno Lemaitre

While largely neglected over decades during which adaptive immunity captured most of the attention, innate immune mechanisms have now become central to our understanding of immunology. Innate immunity provides the first barrier to infection in vertebrates, ...

2024

A common NFKB1 variant detected through antibody analysis in UK Biobank predicts risk of infection and allergy

Jacques Fellay, Flavia Aurelia Shoko Hodel

Infectious agents contribute significantly to the global burden of diseases through both acute infection and their chronic sequelae. We leveraged the UK Biobank to identify genetic loci that influence humoral immune response to multiple infections. From 45 ...

2024

Exploration and modulation of mechanical cues for enhanced cancer immunotherapy

Armand Kurum

The advent of immunotherapy, such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and adoptive transfer of cytotoxic lymphocytes, has transformed the clinical care of cancer. However, a significant proportion of patients are resistant to immunotherapy or experience re ...

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

Accessible and highly observable gastrointestinal organoid model systems for studying host-pathogen interactions

Moritz Hofer

Traditional cell cultures have long been fundamental to biological research, offering an alternative to animal models burdened by ethical constraints and procedural intricacies, often lacking relevance to human physiology and disease. Moreover, their inabi ...

EPFL2024

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

Mechanisms and functions of protein S-acylation

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Laurence Gouzi Abrami, Francisco De Magalhães Sarmento R De Mesquita

Over the past two decades, protein S-acylation (often referred to as S-palmitoylation) has emerged as an important regulator of vital signalling pathways. S-Acylation is a reversible post-translational modification that involves the attachment of a fatty a ...

Nature Portfolio2024

A Cluster of Evolutionarily Recent KRAB Zinc Finger Proteins Protects Cancer Cells from Replicative Stress–Induced Inflammation

Didier Trono, Priscilla Turelli, Sandra Eloise Kjeldsen, Cyril David Son-Tuyên Pulver, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Filipe Amândio Brandão Sanches Vong Martins, Olga Marie Louise Rosspopoff, Joana Carlevaro Fita, Romain Forey, Florian Huber

Heterochromatin loss and genetic instability enhance cancer progression by favoring clonal diversity, yet uncontrolled replicative stress leads to mitotic catastrophe and inflammatory responses that promote immune rejection. KRAB domain-containing zinc fin ...

2024

Single-cell analysis of the interactions between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and macrophages

Ophélie Rutschmann

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis is a highly effective pathogen infecting nearly a third of the world's population. An M. tuberculosis infection starts when droplets containing bacteria enter an individual's lungs. The first host cells to contact the bacteria ar ...

EPFL2024

Meeting our Makers: Uncovering the cis-regulatory activity of transposable elements using statistical learning

Cyril David Son-Tuyên Pulver

The adaptation of organisms to their environment depends on the innovative potential inherent to genetic variation. In complex organisms such as mammals, processes like development and immunity require tight gene regulation. Complex forms emerge more often ...

EPFL2024

Alpha1-antitrypsin improves survival in murine abdominal sepsis model by decreasing inflammation and sequestration of free heme

Florian Maria Wurm

Background Excessive inflammation, hemolysis, and accumulation of labile heme play an essential role in the pathophysiology of multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) in sepsis. Alpha1-antitrypsin (AAT), an acute phase protein with heme binding capacity, i ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Tree diversity reduces variability in sapling survival under drought

Charlotte Grossiord, Xiaojuan Liu, Jingjing Liang

Enhancing tree diversity may be important to fostering resilience to drought-related climate extremes. So far, little attention has been given to whether tree diversity can increase the survival of trees and reduce its variability in young forest plantatio ...

Wiley2024

From roots to canopy: Unraveling the influence of species diversity on tree water relations under warmer and drier climates

Eugénie Isabelle Mas

The worsening of drought events with rising air temperature alters tree water relations causing severe hydraulic impairments and widespread forest mortality. Mixing tree species with contrasting hydraulic traits could reduce forest vulnerability to extreme ...

EPFL2024

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

Reproductive isolation arises during laboratory adaptation to a novel hot environment

Ana Marija Jaksic

Background: Reproductive isolation can result from adaptive processes (e.g., ecological speciation and mutation-order speciation) or stochastic processes such as "system drift" model. Ecological speciation predicts barriers to gene flow between populations ...

BMC2024

Organ-specific biotransformation in salmonids: Insight into intrinsic enzyme activity and biotransformation of three micropollutants

Kristin Schirmer, Juliane Hollender

Aquatic ecosystems continue to be threatened by chemical pollution. To what extent organisms are able to cope with chemical exposure depends on their ability to display mechanisms of defense across different organs. Among these mechanisms, biotransformatio ...

Elsevier2024

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

Massimo Bourquin

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