Microbiology

Microorganisms have evolved adaptive strategies to respond to the autonomous degradation of their environment. Indeed, a growing culture progressively exhausts nutrients from its media and modifies its composition. Yet, how single cells react to these modifications remains difficult to study since it requires population-scale growth experiments to

Dozens of Mycoplasma species belonging to the class Mollicutes bind to solid surfaces through the organelle formed at a cell pole and glide in its direction by a unique mechanism. In Mycoplasma mobile, the fastest gliding species in Mycoplasma, the force for gliding is generated by ATP hydrolysis on an internal structure. However, the spatial and

Recent advancements in 3D microscopy have enabled scientists to monitor signals of multiple cells in various animals/organs. However, segmenting and tracking the moving cells in three-dimensional time-lapse images (3D + T images), to extract their dynamic positions and activities, remains a considerable bottleneck in the field. We developed a deep

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a toxic oxidant produced as a byproduct of several biological processes. At too high levels of hydrogen peroxide cells will experience oxidative stress, leading to a cellular response to decrease its levels and to protect the cells. Previously, methods used to study and quantify intracellular H2O2 have been limited by

The mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) performs several critical biological functions, including maintaining mitochondrial membrane potential, serving as an electron sink for important metabolic pathways, and contributing to the generation of ATP via oxidative phosphorylation. The ETC is important for the survival of many eukaryotic

Throughout their life cycle, bacteria shed portions of their outermost membrane comprised of proteins, lipids, and a diversity of other biomolecules. These biological nanoparticles have been shown to have a range of highly diverse biological activities, including pathogenesis, community regulation, and cellular defense (among others). In recent

The relapsing malaria species, Plasmodium vivax, is the most widely distributed and difficult-to-treat cause of human malaria. The merozoites of P. vivax preferentially invade ephemeral human CD71+ reticulocytes (nascent reticulocytes), thereby limiting the development of a robust continuous culture in vitro. Fortunately, P. vivax’s sister

Phlebotomine vectors, sand flies of the order Diptera, are known to transmit Leishmania parasites as well as RNA viruses (arboviruses) to humans. The arbovirus, Icoaraci Phlebovirus (BeAN 24262 - ICOV), used in this study was isolated from Nectomys rodents, a mammalian species that is the same natural sylvatic reservoir of Leishmania (Leishmania)

The diversity of lipid structures, properties, and combinations in biological tissues makes their extraction and analysis an experimental challenge. Accordingly, even for one of the simplest single-cellular fungi, the budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), numerous extraction and analysis protocols have been developed to separate and quantitate

Plasmodium falciparum is a unicellular eukaryotic parasite that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is spread by Anopheles mosquitoes after ingestion of sexual stage parasites known as gametocytes. Malaria transmission depends on parasites switching from the disease-causing asexual blood forms to male and female gametocytes. The current