Publications associées à Disruption of the SucT acyltransferase in Mycobacterium smegmatis abrogates succinylation of cell envelope polysaccharides

Resolving bacterial cell biology: from replisome dynamics to cell wall synthesis

Bacteria are ubiquitous single cellular organisms. Compared to eukaryotic cells, bacteria have two unique characteristics: the membrane-less nucleoid and the cell wall built of peptidoglycan (PG). In most bacteria, a single circular chromosome is compacted ...

EPFL2024

Influence of Amino Acid Substitutions in Capsid Proteins of Coxsackievirus B5 on Free Chlorine and Thermal Inactivation

Tamar Kohn, Shotaro Torii, Aleksandar Antanasijevic, Kiruthika Kumar

The sensitivity of enteroviruses to disinfectants varies among genetically similar variants and coincides with amino acid changes in capsid proteins, although the effect of individual substitutions remains unknown. Here, we employed reverse genetics to inv ...

2024

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

Simultaneous membrane and RNA binding by Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus capsid protein

Sarah Victoria Barrass

Tick-borne encephalitis virus is an enveloped, pathogenic, RNA virus in the family Flaviviridae, genus Flavivirus. Viral particles are formed when the nucleocapsid, consisting of an RNA genome and multiple copies of the capsid protein, buds through the end ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2023

Metabolic dependencies of metastasis-initiating cells in breast cancer

Candice Megan T Young

Metastasis is the process by which cancer cells from the primary tumor travel through the blood stream to generate a secondary tumor site in a distant organ. Although very few cells are able to make this journey, the resulting effects are dire since most c ...

EPFL2023

Metabolic dependencies of metastasis-initiating cells in female breast cancer

Jörg Hülsken, Albert Santamaria Martinez, Pierre Vincent Dessen, Laurent Nam Ky Beziaud, Candice Megan T Young, Angela Madurga Alonso

Understanding the mechanisms that enable cancer cells to metastasize is essential in preventing cancer progression. Here we examine the metabolic adaptations of metastasis-initiating cells (MICs) in female breast cancer and how those shape their metastatic ...

Nature Portfolio2023

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

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

Carbon nanotube uptake in cyanobacteria for near-infrared imaging and enhanced bioelectricity generation in living photovoltaics

Vitalijs Zubkovs, Ardemis Anoush Boghossian, Alessandra Antonucci, Charlotte Elisabeth Marie Roullier, Nils Schürgers, Benjamin Paul Johanès Gabriel Lambert, Alice Judith Gillen, Melania Reggente, Mohammed Mouhib

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have unique optoelectronic properties that make them suitable for applications ranging from phototherapy to imaging and sensing, but their uptake has mainly been explored in eukaryotic cells. Here the authors explore ...

2022

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

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

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

Seeing and Touching the Mycomembrane at the Nanoscale

John McKinney, Georg Fantner

Mycobacteria have unique cell envelopes, surface properties and growth dynamics, which all play a part in the ability of these important pathogens to infect, evade host immunity, disseminate and to resist antibiotic challenges. Recent atomic force microsco ...

American Society for Microbiology2021

A high-throughput cell- and virus-free assay shows reduced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants by COVID-19 convalescent plasma

Didier Trono, Priscilla Turelli, Florence Pojer, Charlène Mireille Raymonde Raclot, Céline Pellaton, Valeria Cagno, Jérémy Campos

The detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-specific antibodies in the serum of an individual indicates previous infection or vaccination. However, it provides limited insight into the protective nature of this immune resp ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2021

The influence of the crowding assumptions in biofilm simulations

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Liliana Angeles Martinez

Author summary In nature, many organisms grow in crowded biofilms that protect against stressful conditions, making their control/eradication a challenge. Modeling these microbial systems is a valuable tool for studying the interactions among cells and exp ...

2021

Functional and structural characterization of Serratia marcescens ExbB: determinants of the interaction with HasB/TonB

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg

ExbBD is part of a cytoplasmic membrane molecular motor driven by the proton-motive force. It belongs to the larger family of motors involved in nutriment import across the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria (ExbBD), flagellar rotation (MotAB) or lat ...

2021

Visualizing intracellular nanostructures of living cells by nanoendoscopy-AFM

Marcos Penedo Garcia

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is the only technique that allows label-free imaging of nanoscale biomolecular dynamics, playing a crucial role in solving biological questions that cannot be addressed by other major bioimaging tools (fluorescence or electron ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2021

Scratching the Surface: Bacterial Cell Envelopes at the Nanoscale

Georg Fantner

The bacterial cell envelope is essential for viability, the environmental gatekeeper and first line of defense against external stresses. For most bacteria, the envelope biosynthesis is also the site of action of some of the most important groups of antibi ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2020

Parietal Structures of Escherichia coli Can Impact the D-Cateslytin Antibacterial Activity

Oliver Peric, Georg Fantner

Bacterial resistance to conventional antibiotics is of major concern. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are considered excellent alternatives. Among them, D-cateslytin (D-Ctl, derivative of a host defense peptide) has shown high efficiency against a broad spec ...

2020

FasR Regulates Fatty Acid Biosynthesis and Is Essential for Virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Stewart Cole, Claudia Sala

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiologic agent of human tuberculosis, is the world's leading cause of death from an infectious disease. One of the main features of this pathogen is the complex and dynamic lipid composition of the cell envelope, which adap ...

Frontiers Media SA2020