Publications related to Multitarget Drug Discovery for Tuberculosis and Other Infectious Diseases

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

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

Human alveolar lining fl uid from the elderly promotes Mycobacterium tuberculosis intracellular growth and translocation into the cytosol of alveolar epithelial cells

Vivek Vijay Thacker, Richa Mishra

The elderly population is highly susceptible to developing respiratory diseases, including tuberculosis, a devastating disease caused by the airborne pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( M.tb ) that kills one person every 18 seconds. Once M.tb reaches the ...

Elsevier Science Inc2024

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

Large Libraries of Structurally Diverse Macrocycles Suitable for Membrane Permeation

Christian Heinis, Alessandro Angelini, Mischa Schüttel, Ganesh Kumar Mothukuri, Manuel Leonardo Merz, Zsolt Bognár, Xinjian Ji, Edward Jeffrey Will, Alexander Lund Nielsen, Anne Sofie Luise Zarda

Macrocycles offer an attractive format for drug development due to their good binding properties and potential to cross cell membranes. To efficiently identify macrocyclic ligands for new targets, methods for the synthesis and screening of large combinator ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Microfluidic systems for infectious disease diagnostics

Thomas Lehnert, Martinus Gijs

Microorganisms, encompassing both uni- and multicellular entities, exhibit remarkable diversity as omnipresent life forms in nature. They play a pivotal role by supplying essential components for sustaining biological processes across diverse ecosystems, i ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Homogeneous vs. heterogeneous photo-Fenton elimination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria bearing intracellular or extracellular resistance: Do resistance mechanisms interfere with disinfection pathways?

César Pulgarin, Stefanos Giannakis, Truong-Thien Melvin Le, Jérémie Decker

The present study aimed to fill the knowledge gap between the implications of intracellular and extracellular antibiotic resistance mechanisms may inflict on the inactivation pathways of the photo-Fenton process under mild conditions. It was thus designed ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Machine learning method for the classification of the state of living organisms' oscillations

Sandor Kasas, María Inés Villalba

The World Health Organization highlights the urgent need to address the global threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Efficient and rapid detection of bacterial response to antibiotics and their virulence state is crucial for the effective treatmen ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Quantified interface chemistry and biophysics via water imaging

Sylvie Roke

High throughput wide-field second harmonic imaging enables the label-free imaging of interfacial (< 3 nm thick) water, with a spatial resolution of similar to 370 nm using similar to 100 ms acquisition times per image. The obtained interfacial orientationa ...

Spie-Int Soc Optical Engineering2024

From Surfactants to 3D Printing: How Ion-Chelator Pair Interactions Affect the Mechanical Properties of Bioinspired Materials

Gaia De Angelis

The remarkable adaptability observed in marine ecosystems has often inspired researchers when developing new soft materials. The research undertaken in this thesis explores how ion chelator pair interactions influence the mechanical properties of bioinspir ...

EPFL2024

High throughput wide field second harmonic imaging of giant unilamellar vesicles

Sylvie Roke, Pierre-Marc Jean Marie Dansette, Maksim Eremchev, David Roesel

Cell-sized giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are an ideal tool for understanding lipid membrane structure and properties. Label-free spatiotemporal images of their membrane potential and structure would greatly aid the quantitative understanding of membran ...

AIP Publishing2023

Effects of thermal, mechanical, and electrostatic perturbations on lipid membrane hydration investigated by second harmonic imaging

Seonwoo Lee

Hydrated lipid bilayer membranes are crucial components of cells and organelles, serving as the outer boundary that separates the cellular components from the extracellular environment. Lipid membranes regulate their structures and functions by dynamically ...

EPFL2023

Investigating the composition and recruitment of the mycobacterial ImuA'-ImuB-DnaE2 mutasome

John McKinney, Neeraj Dhar, Zela Alexandria-Mae Martin

A DNA damage-inducible mutagenic gene cassette has been implicated in the emergence of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis during anti-tuberculosis (TB) chemotherapy. However, the molecular composition and operation of the encoded 'mycobacterial ...

Elife Sciences Publ Ltd2023

DNA modifications impact natural transformation of Acinetobacter baumannii

Christian Iseli, Nicolas Jean Philippe Guex, Melanie Blokesch, Nina Vesel, Alexandre Lemopoulos

Acinetobacter baumannii is a dangerous nosocomial pathogen, especially due to its ability to rapidly acquire new genetic traits, including antibiotic resistance genes (ARG). In A. baumannii, natural competence for transformation, one of the primary modes o ...

2023

Back-to-Africa introductions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the main cause of tuberculosis in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Jacques Fellay, Zhi Ming Xu

In settings with high tuberculosis (TB) endemicity, distinct genotypes of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) often differ in prevalence. However, the factors leading to these differences remain poorly understood. Here we studied the MTBC populat ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2023

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

A Rapidly Responsive Sensor for Wireless Detection of Early and Mature Microbial Biofilms

Hubert Girault, Andreas Stephan Lesch, Bhawna Nagar, Wanderson Oliveira Da Silva

Biofilm-associated infections, which are able to resist antibiotics, pose a significant challenge in clinical treatments. Such infections have been linked to various medical conditions, including chronic wounds and implant-associated infections, making the ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

Time-Resolved Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy and Single-Molecule Spectroscopy

Samuel Mendes Leitão

The evolution of the 3D morphology is at the center of many relevant biological processes ranging from cellular differentiation to cancer invasion and metastasis. Microscopy techniques, such as electron microscopy (EM), super-resolution (SR) optical micros ...

EPFL2023

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing with integrated photonic crystal optical tweezers

Nicolas Villa

The abusive use of antimicrobial drugs during the last eighty years has favoured the natural selection of resistant pathogens able to neutralise drugs efficiently. Nowadays, antimicrobial resistance contributes to millions of deaths yearly, threatens the e ...

EPFL2023

Simple optical nanomotion method for single-bacterium viability and antibiotic response testing

Sandor Kasas, María Inés Villalba, Allan Bonvallat, Eugenia Rossetti

Antibiotic resistance is nowadays a major public health issue. Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility tests (AST) are one of the options to fight this deadly threat. Performing AST with single-cell sensitivity that is rapid, cheap, and widely accessible, is ch ...

National Academy of Sciences2023

Mechanisms Underlying the Recruitment of Inhibitory Interneurons in Fictive Swimming in Developing Xenopus laevis Tadpoles

Haoyu Zhang, Andrea Ferrario

Developing spinal circuits generate patterned motor outputs while many neurons with high membrane resistances are still maturing. In the spinal cord of hatchling frog tadpoles of unknown sex, we found that the firing reliability in swimming of inhibitory i ...

SOC NEUROSCIENCE2023