Publications related to Vertical transmission of a Drosophila endosymbiont via cooption of the yolk transport and internalization machinery

Proliferation-driven mechanical compression induces signalling centre formation during mammalian organ development

Localized sources of morphogens, called signalling centres, play a fundamental role in coordinating tissue growth and cell fate specification during organogenesis. However, how these signalling centres are established in tissues during embryonic developmen ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Metabolism of the symbiotic jellyfish Cassiopea in a changing environment

Gaëlle Delphine Toullec

Ocean warming and other anthropogenic impacts have led to a global decline in many photosymbiotic cnidarians, most notably reef-building corals. But some species of the symbiotic and (sub-)tropical upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea are increasingly reported ...

EPFL2023

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

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

In vitro endoderm emergence and self-organisation in the absence of extraembryonic tissues and embryonic architecture

Stefano Davide Vianello

In humans, mice, and other mammals key internal organs such as the gut, the lungs, the pancreas, and the liver all derive from the same embryonic tissue: the endoderm. The development of all of these structures thus depends on a same set of early cells, an ...

EPFL2022

Deconstructing body axis morphogenesis in zebrafish embryos using robot-assisted tissue micromanipulation

Matthias Rüegg, Mahmut Selman Sakar, Erik Mailand, Ece Özelçi, Andrew Charles Oates

Classic microsurgical techniques, such as those used in the early 1900s by Mangold and Spemann, have been instrumental in advancing our understanding of embryonic development. However, these techniques are highly specialized, leading to issues of inter-ope ...

Nature Research2022

Intrinsically High Capacity of Animal Cells From a Symbiotic Cnidarian to Deal With Pro-Oxidative Conditions

Gaëlle Delphine Toullec

The cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis is a mutualistic intracellular association based on the photosynthetic activity of the endosymbiont. This relationship involves significant constraints and requires co-evolution processes, such as an extensive capacit ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

Human reproduction is regulated by retrotransposons derived from ancient Hominidae-specific viral infections

Didier Trono, Julien Paul André Pontis, Yu Tao

The transcription factor network required for primordial germ cell (PGC) specification is known to diverge in mammals. Here the authors show that hominidae-specific transposable element (TE) LTR5Hs becomes transcriptionally active during PGC specification, ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Presence of algal symbionts affects denitrifying bacterial communities in the sea anemone Aiptasia coral model

Anders Meibom, Nils Rädecker, Claudia Isabella Pogoreutz

The coral-algal symbiosis is maintained by a constant and limited nitrogen availability in the holobiont. Denitrifiers, i.e., prokaryotes reducing nitrate/nitrite to dinitrogen, could contribute to maintaining the nitrogen limitation in the coral holobiont ...

2022

Rapid molecular evolution of Spiroplasma symbionts of Drosophila

Bruno Lemaitre, Florent François Masson

Spiroplasma is a genus of Mollicutes whose members include plant pathogens, insect pathogens and endosymbionts of animals. Spiroplasma phenotypes have been repeatedly observed to be spontaneously lost in Drosophila cultures, and several studies have docume ...

2021

Dual proteomics of Drosophila melanogaster hemolymph infected with the heritable endosymbiont Spiroplasma poulsonii

Bruno Lemaitre, Fanny Schüpfer, Samuel Rommelaere, Florent François Masson, Alice Marra

Insects are frequently infected with heritable bacterial endosymbionts. Endosymbionts have a dramatic impact on their host physiology and evolution. Their tissue distribution is variable with some species being housed intracellularly, some extracellularly ...

2021

KRAB zinc finger protein-mediated control of transposon-embedded regulatory sequences from human germline to early embryos

Alexandra Iouranova

Transposable elements (TEs), also called jumping genes, are genetic elements capable of changing their position within the genome of their host. They make up large fractions of genomes, including 45% of human DNA content, according to current estimates. S ...

EPFL2021

The role of immune effectors in controlling Drosophila-microbes interactions

Alice Marra

All live beings are in constant interaction with microorganisms that may be beneficial, deleterious or commensal. Insects in particular live in close contact with microorganisms. This is especially true for species, like the fruit fly Drosophila melanogast ...

EPFL2021

Tissue Engineering with Mechanically Induced Solid‐Fluid Transitions

Jon Märki, Matthias Rüegg, Mahmut Selman Sakar, Erik Mailand, Ece Özelçi, Nikolaos Bouklas, Odysseas Konstantinos Chaliotis, Jaemin Kim

Epithelia are contiguous sheets of cells that stabilize the shape of internal organs and support their structure by covering their surfaces. They acquire diverse morphological forms appropriate for their specific functions during embryonic development, suc ...

Wiley2021

Transformation of the Drosophila Sex-Manipulative Endosymbiont Spiroplasma poulsonii and Persisting Hurdles for Functional Genetic Studies

Bruno Lemaitre, Florent François Masson, Chloé Christiane Laurence Jollivet

Insects are frequently infected by bacterial symbionts that greatly affect their physiology and ecology. Most of these endosymbionts are, however, barely tractable outside their native host, rendering functional genetics studies difficult or impossible. Sp ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2020

Blind killing of both male and female Drosophila embryos by a natural variant of the endosymbiotic bacterium Spiroplasma poulsonii

Bruno Lemaitre, Juan Camilo Paredes Escobar, Mario Gonzalo Garcia Arraez, Samuel Rommelaere, Florent François Masson

Spiroplasma poulsonii is a vertically transmitted endosymbiont of Drosophila melanogaster that causes male-killing, that is the death of infected male embryos during embryogenesis. Here, we report a natural variant of S. poulsonii that is efficiently verti ...

WILEY2020

Unequal cleavage of the C. elegans zygote ensures robust embryogenesis

Radek Jankele

Asymmetric cell divisions play key roles in generating cellular diversity during embryogenesis, and in tissue homeostasis during postembryonic life. Particular asymmetric cell divisions producing differentially sized daughter cells were described in many s ...

EPFL2020

In vitro modeling of early mouse development

Mehmet Ugur Girgin

Previous attempts to recapitulate embryogenesis in a developmentally relevant context started with aggregates composed of a few thousand ESCs, termed embryoid bodies (EB), that upon induction of differentiation reveal a surprising level of autonomous cell ...

EPFL2020

Sub-cellular imaging shows reduced photosynthetic carbon and increased nitrogen assimilation by the non-native endosymbiontDurusdinium trenchiiin the model cnidarian Aiptasia

Anders Meibom

Hosting different symbiont species can affect inter-partner nutritional fluxes within the cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis. Using nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS), we measured the spatial incorporation of photosynthetically fixed(13)C ...

WILEY2020

Comparative Transcriptomics Analyses across Species, Organs, and Developmental Stages Reveal Functionally Constrained lncRNAs

Fabrice Daniel Darbellay, Anamaria Necsulea

The functionality of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) is disputed. In general, lncRNAs are under weak selective pressures, suggesting that the majority of lncRNAs may be nonfunctional. However, although some surveys showed negligible phenotypic effects upon l ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2020