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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sporadic type VI secretion in seventh pandemic Vibrio cholerae

Melanie Blokesch, Sandrine Stutzmann, Lisa Christina Metzger, Natalia Carolina Drebes Dorr, Sandrine Natacha Isaac, Nicolas René Chiaruttini, Alexis Joseph Proutière, Loriane Bader

Vibrio cholerae is a pathogen that causes disease in millions of people every year by colonizing the small intestine and then secreting the potent cholera toxin. How the pathogen overcomes the colonization barrier created by the host’s natural microbiota i ...

2023

Microfluidic device combining hydrodynamic and dielectrophoretic trapping for the controlled contact between single micro-sized objects and application to adhesion assays

Philippe Renaud, Arnaud Bertsch, Clémentine Sophie Sarah Lipp

The understanding of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions via receptor and ligand binding relies on our ability to study the very first events of their contact. Of particular interest is the interaction between a T cell receptor and its cognate peptide-m ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

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

Glacier-Fed Stream Biofilms Harbor Diverse Resistomes and Biosynthetic Gene Clusters

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud

Antimicrobial resistance is an omnipresent phenomenon in the anthropogenically influenced ecosystems. However, its role in shaping microbial community dynamics in pristine environments is relatively unknown. ...

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

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

The Effects of Spatial Organization and Fluid Flow on the Social Interactions in Microbial Communities

Jeremy Pak Hei Wong

Bacteria often engage in social interactions with neighbouring bacteria. Ecosystems which are subjected to social interactions have been widely studied in well mixed settings such as test tubes, allowing us to identify the cellular components contributing ...

EPFL2023

How Vibrio cholerae adapts to the environment: from cell shape transitions to antagonistic behavior

Leonardo Filipe Lemos Rocha

The bacterium Vibrio cholerae is the causative agent of the diarrheal disease cholera, which affects millions of people every year. Apart from being a human pathogen, V. cholerae is also a common member of aquatic habitats. Whilst the mechanism that allow ...

EPFL2022

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

Engineering synthetic adhesins for biophysical investigation and rewiring of host-microbe interactions

Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat

Host attachment is often a critical step in the onset of pathogenesis. To attach to host cells, bacteria have evolved a range of adhesins that bind to specific receptors. Some of these adhesins have been thoroughly characterized using biochemical technique ...

EPFL2022

Natural competence of the pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii: an elusive phenomenon

Nina Vesel

Natural competence for transformation is an important driver of horizontal DNA exchange between different organisms. This can result in accumulation of dangerous genetic features, such as antibiotic resistance genes, in a single organism. One example of an ...

EPFL2022

Viral diversity is linked to bacterial community composition in alpine stream biofilms

Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Meriem Bekliz

Biofilms play pivotal roles in fluvial ecosystems, yet virtually nothing is known about viruses in these communities. Leveraging an optimized sample-to-sequence pipeline, we studied the spatiotemporal turnover of dsDNA viruses associated with stream biofil ...

Springer2022

Transposon-activated POU5F1B promotes colorectal cancer growth and metastasis

Didier Trono, Laurence Gouzi Abrami, Julien Léonard Duc, Sandra Eloise Kjeldsen, Alexandre Coudray, Sagane Dind, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Laia Simo Riudalbas

The treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) is an unmet medical need in absence of early diagnosis. Here, upon characterizing cancer-specific transposable element-driven transpochimeric gene transcripts (TcGTs) produced by this tumor in the SYSCOL cohort, we ...

Nature Research2022

Benthic Biofilms in Glacier-Fed Streams from Scandinavia to the Himalayas Host Distinct Bacterial Communities Compared with the Streamwater

Leïla Ezzat, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Tom Ian Battin, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Hannes Markus Peter, Emmy Marie Oppliger, Jade Brandani, Matteo Tolosano, Michail Styllas, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Massimo Bourquin, Martina Andrea Schön, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Virginia Tadei

Microbial life in glacier-fed streams (GFSs) is dominated by benthic biofilms which fulfill critical ecosystem processes. However, it remains unclear how the bacterial communities of these biofilms assemble in stream ecosystems characterized by rapid turno ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022