Publications associées à Insights into flagellar function and mechanism from the squid-vibrio symbiosis

Host-derived organic acids enable gut colonization of the honey bee symbiont Snodgrassella alvi

Diverse bacteria can colonize the animal gut using dietary nutrients or by engaging in microbial crossfeeding interactions. Less is known about the role of host-derived nutrients in enabling gut bacterial colonization. Here we examined metabolic interactio ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Interactions between pili affect the outcome of bacterial competition driven by the type VI secretion system

Melanie Blokesch, Anne-Florence Raphaëlle Bitbol, Simon Bernhard Otto, Richard Marie Servajean, Alexandre Lemopoulos

The bacterial type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a widespread, kin-discriminatory weapon capable of shaping microbial communities. Due to the system’s dependency on contact, cellular interactions can lead to either competition or kin protection. Cell-to-ce ...

2024

Dangerous acquaintances: the interplay between type IV pili and the type VI secretion system during Vibrio cholerae's environmental lifestyle

Simon Bernhard Otto

Cholera, caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, has affected humanity throughout history and still impacts millions of people every year. Apart from being a human pathogen, V. cholerae is a common member of the aquatic environment. Due to this natural re ...

EPFL2024

Biofilm morphogenesis on soft hydrogels

Alice Cont

Bacteria often colonize their environment in the form of surface attached multicellular communities called biofilms. Biofilms grow from surface-attached cells that undergo division while self-embedding in a viscoelastic matrix. Biofilms grow at the surface ...

EPFL2023

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

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

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

Photobiology and metabolic interactions in the symbiotic jellyfish Cassiopea

Niclas Heidelberg Lyndby

The symbiont-bearing jellyfish Cassiopea live a benthic lifestyle, positioning themselves upside-down on sediments in shallow waters to allow their endosymbiotic algae to photosynthesize in the sunlight. Over the last decades Cassiopea has become increasin ...

EPFL2023

Functional characterization of Drosophila melanogaster immune effectors

Alexia Laurie Carboni

Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the "fruit fly", is a genetically tractable model organism widely used to study biological processes, notably the innate immune system. The advent of novel genome editing technologies, such as the CRISPR-Cas9 syst ...

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

A subcellular biochemical model for T6SS dynamics reveals winning competitive strategies

Yuexia Luna Lin

The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a broadly distributed interbacterial weapon that can be used to eliminate competing bacterial populations. Although unarmed target populations are typically used to study T6SS function in vitro, bacteria most likely e ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2023

Symbiotic nutrient exchange enhances the long-term survival of cassiosomes, the autonomous stinging-cell structures of Cassiopea

Cristina Martin Olmos, Anders Meibom, Niclas Heidelberg Lyndby, Gaëlle Delphine Toullec, Nils Rädecker, Claudia Isabella Pogoreutz, Guilhem Maurice Louis Banc-Prandi

Medusae of the widely distributed upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea release autonomous, mobile stinging structures. These so-called cassiosomes play a role in predator defense and prey capture, and are major contributors to “contactless” stinging incidents i ...

2023

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

Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mechanosensing through label-free imaging of type IV pili

Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà

Bacteria are ubiquitously found in all sorts of environment. They're found in the ocean, soil, or even in our guts or on our skin. Independently of their niche, they can transition from a planktonic state were they freely swim in an aqueous environment to ...

EPFL2022

Cecropins contribute to Drosophila host defense against a subset of fungal and Gram-negative bacterial infection

Bruno Lemaitre, Alexia Laurie Carboni, Mark Austin Hanson

Cecropins are small helical secreted peptides with antimicrobial activity that are widely distributed among insects. Genes encoding Cecropins are strongly induced upon infection, pointing to their role in host defense. In Drosophila, four cecropin genes cl ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC2022

A systematic CRISPR approach to understanding the role of Drosophila antimicrobial peptides in immunity in vivo

Mark Austin Hanson

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are host-encoded antibiotics that combat invading microbes. These short immune effectors are conserved in plants, animals, and fungi. Early work showed that AMPs killed bacteria in generalist fashions in vitro: i.e. AMPs that ...

EPFL2022

Preexisting Heterogeneity of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Expression Drives Differential Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Macrophages

John McKinney, Ophélie Rutschmann, Chiara Toniolo

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is initiated by the inhalation and implantation of bacteria in the lung alveoli, where they are phagocytosed by macrophages. Even a single bacterium may be sufficient to initiate infection. Thereafter, the clinical outc ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022

Coral holobiont cues prime Endozoicomonas for a symbiotic lifestyle

Nils Rädecker, Claudia Isabella Pogoreutz, Gabriela Hannah Holligan Perna

Endozoicomonas are prevalent, abundant bacterial associates of marine animals, including corals. Their role in holobiont health and functioning, however, remains poorly understood. To identify potential interactions within the coral holobiont, we character ...

SPRINGERNATURE2022

Preparation and Analysis of Bacteria Surface-Modified with Polymer Nanoparticles

Lisa Patricia Elisabeth Bader

Cell-based drug carriers present an interesting approach to improve the targeted delivery of therapeutic drugs in vivo. Specifically, bacterial cells possess interesting properties such as motility and sensing that allow some strains to selectively target ...

EPFL2022

Fluorescent D-Amino Acids for Super-resolution Microscopy of the Bacterial Cell Wall

Luc Reymond, Suliana Manley, Ophélie Rutschmann, Juliette Griffie, Chen Zhang, Willi Leopold Stepp, Jiangtao Qiao, Faustine Ambroisine Charline Ryckebusch

Fluorescent D-amino acids (FDAAs) have previ-ously been developed to enable in situ highlighting of locations of bacterial cell wall growth. Most bacterial cells lie at the edge of the diffraction limit of visible light; thus, resolving the precise details ...

2022