Description
What are the consequences of symbioses for the partners and other organisms?
Microbes are shaped by their evolutionary history, which provides them the genomic framework to cause disease. Experimental, analytical and technological innovation enables today genomic reconstruction at unprecedented detail. The Key lab aims to uncover the genetic mechanisms and phenotypic variation that underlay emergence, transmission and adaptation of pathogens. We use a systems approach...
Metabolic complementarity is hypothesized to underpin beneficial interactions between
symbiotic organisms, allowing the partners to potentially expand their combined metabolic capabilities by offsetting metabolic deficiencies. While genome-based metabolic models offer a promising avenue to predict such complementarity in silico, empirical evidence validating these predictions remains scarce....
All mouthless catenulid flatworms of the genus Paracatenula are in a symbiotic relationship with the chemosynthetic bacteria Candidatus Riegeria. This ancient symbiosis has been established more than 400 MYA, the endosymbionts are strictly transmitted vertically and, based on a single symbiont genome, the symbionts still harbour all genes essential for the complete nutrition of their animal...
Spiroplasma is a gram-positive, cell wall-less, motile bacteria found in plants and animals. In Drosophila, these maternally inheritable bacteria were first found in neotropical willistoni-group samples in the 1960s with low prevalence as a sex-ratio disorder agent. Unfortunately, these strains were lost before being studied by molecular methods. Later, Spiroplasma has been found in different...
Biotrophic fungal plant pathogens co-evolve with their hosts often leading to narrow host ranges. New host specificities resulting in the emergence of novel plant diseases can arise after so-called host jumps. Resulting from a recent host jump, the biotrophic smut fungus Sporisorium reilianum exists in two distinct formae speciales, S. reilianum f.sp. reilianum (SRS) and S. reilianum f.sp....
Insect-microbe relationships are widespread, traversing a broad spectrum of reciprocal dependency, intimacy, duration, and cooperation. Many insects are only able to establish in their ecological niche because of bacterial partners. The false click beetles (Coleoptera, Throscidae) are a small, but globally distributed family that live in leaf litter and decaying wood and were previously...
