259 results match your criteria: "Institute of Botany and Microbiology[Affiliation]"
PLoS Pathog
July 2025
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg, Leuven, Belgium.
Metab Eng Commun
June 2025
VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research, VIB, Ghent, Belgium.
The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) has gained attention for its role in animals and humans, particularly due to its protective effects in various immune and inflammatory disorders. Given its high concentrations in fruits like figs, bilberries and apricots, ABA shows promise as a nutraceutical. However scalability, short half-life and cost limit the use of ABA-enriched fruit extracts and synthetic supplements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant Direct
May 2025
Molecular Biotechnology of Plants and Micro-Organisms, Institute of Botany and Microbiology KU Leuven Leuven Belgium.
RNA-binding protein interactions with viral RNA are crucial in the context of viral infections, as viral RNAs can recruit and reprogram host RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) during disease progression. Despite their significance, the repertoire of RBPs involved in most viral infections remains inadequately characterized. In Africa, Sobemovirus Rice yellow mottle virus (Sobemovirus RYMV) is the most prevalent virus infecting rice, and its devastating impact has led to extensive research efforts worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrob Agents Chemother
March 2025
Department of Biology, Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
The incidence of non- infections has witnessed a substantial rise in recent decades. ), an opportunistic human fungal pathogen, is accountable for both superficial mucosal and life-threatening bloodstream infections, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. Distinguished by its remarkable resilience to environmental stressors, exhibits intrinsic tolerance to azoles and a high propensity to swiftly develop azole resistance during treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomimetics (Basel)
January 2025
Research Group Architectural Engineering, Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Mycelium-based composites (MBCs) are highly valued for their ability to transform low-value organic materials into sustainable building materials, offering significant potential for decarbonizing the construction sector. The properties of MBCs are influenced by factors such as the mycelium species, substrate materials, fabrication growth parameters, and post-processing. Traditional fabrication methods involve combining grain spawn with loose substrates in a mold to achieve specific single functional properties, such as strength, acoustic absorption, or thermal insulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Mol Sci
September 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
The efficient production of biobased organic acids is crucial to move to a more sustainable and eco-friendly economy, where muconic acid is gaining interest as a versatile platform chemical to produce industrial building blocks, including adipic acid and terephthalic acid. In this study, a platform strain able to convert glucose and xylose into ,-muconic acid was further engineered to eliminate C2 dependency, improve muconic acid tolerance, enhance production and growth performance, and substantially reduce the side production of the intermediate protocatechuic acid. This was achieved by reintroducing the gene and overexpression of genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFmBio
November 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Unlabelled: In recent decades, there has been an increase in the occurrence of fungal infections; yet, the arsenal of drugs available to fight invasive infections remains very limited. The development of new antifungal agents is hindered by the restricted number of molecular targets that can be exploited, given the shared eukaryotic nature of fungi and their hosts which often leads to host toxicity. In this paper, we examine the riboflavin biosynthetic pathway as a potential novel drug target.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBio Protoc
October 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
is the most common human fungal pathogen, able to reside in a broad range of niches within the human body. Even though systemic infection is associated with high mortality, the fungus has historically received relatively little attention, resulting in a lack of optimized molecular and fluorescent tools. Over the last decade, some extra focus has been put on the optimization of fluorescent proteins (FPs) of C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Oncol
August 2024
Center for Microbiology, VIB, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium.
Many cancer cells share with yeast a preference for fermentation over respiration, which is associated with overactive glucose uptake and breakdown, a phenomenon called the Warburg effect in cancer cells. The yeast mutant shows even more pronounced hyperactive glucose uptake and phosphorylation causing glycolysis to stall at GAPDH, initiation of apoptosis through overactivation of Ras and absence of growth on glucose. The goal of the present work was to use the yeast strain to screen for novel compounds that would preferentially inhibit overactive glucose influx into glycolysis, while maintaining basal glucose catabolism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobiol Spectr
August 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium.
Unlabelled: The genes, and , encode for 2-deoxyglucose-6-phosphate phosphatases. These enzymes of the haloacid dehalogenase superfamily are known to utilize the non-natural 2-deoxyglucose-6-phosphate as their substrate. However, their physiological substrate and hence their biological role remain elusive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Calcium
November 2024
Laboratório de Biologia Celular e Molecular, Departamento de Farmácia, Escola de Farmácia. Electronic address:
Appl Environ Microbiol
June 2024
NovelYeast bv, Bio-Incubator BIO4, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium.
FEMS Yeast Res
January 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 31, B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium.
Major progress in developing Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that utilize the pentose sugar xylose has been achieved. However, the high inhibitor content of lignocellulose hydrolysates still hinders efficient xylose fermentation, which remains a major obstacle for commercially viable second-generation bioethanol production. Further improvement of xylose utilization in inhibitor-rich lignocellulose hydrolysates remains highly challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobiology (Reading)
March 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Fluorescent proteins (FPs) have always been a crucial part of molecular research in life sciences, including the research into the human fungal pathogen but have obvious shortcomings such as their relatively large size and long maturation time. However, the next generation of FPs overcome these issues and rely on the binding of a fluorogen for the protein to become fluorescently active. This generation of FPs includes the improved version of Fluorescence activating and Absorption Shifting Tag (iFAST).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Pathog
January 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol
January 2024
Excellent Research Laboratory for Yeast Innovation, Division of Biochemical Technology, School of Bioresources and Technology, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand.
Evolutionary engineering experiments, in combination with omics technologies, revealed genetic markers underpinning the molecular mechanisms behind acetic acid stress tolerance in the probiotic yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii. Here, compared to the ancestral Ent strain, evolved yeast strains could quickly adapt to high acetic acid levels (7 g/L) and displayed a shorter lag phase of growth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFEBS J
August 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Invasive fungal infections are rapidly increasing, and the opportunistic pathogenic Candida species are the fourth most common cause of nosocomial systemic infections. The current antifungal classes, of which azoles are the most widely used, all have shortcomings. Azoles are generally considered fungistatic rather than fungicidal, they do not actively kill fungal cells and therefore resistance against azoles can be rapidly acquired.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNPJ Biofilms Microbiomes
June 2023
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, 3001, Leuven, Belgium.
Staphylococcus aureus is considered a high priority pathogen by the World Health Organization due to its high prevalence and the potential to form biofilms. Currently, the available treatments for S. aureus biofilm-associated infections do not target the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) matrix.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Pathog
May 2023
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
J Fungi (Basel)
February 2023
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
The PKA pathway is a signaling pathway involved in virulence in . This mechanism can be activated via addition of glucose and activation involves at least two proteins, namely Cdc25 and Ras1. Both proteins are involved in specific virulence traits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Fungi (Basel)
January 2023
KU Leuven Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Botany and Microbiology, Kasteelpark Arenberg 31, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Due to their eukaryotic heritage, the differences between a fungal pathogen's molecular makeup and its human host are small. Therefore, the discovery and subsequent development of novel antifungal drugs are extremely challenging. Nevertheless, since the 1940s, researchers have successfully uncovered potent candidates from natural or synthetic sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Dev Biol
January 2023
Center for Microbiology, VIB, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium.
The presence of sugar in the gut causes induction of SGLT1, the sodium/glucose cotransporter in intestinal epithelial cells (enterocytes), and this is accompanied by stimulation of sugar absorption. Sugar sensing was suggested to involve a G-protein coupled receptor and cAMP - protein kinase A signalling, but the sugar receptor has remained unknown. We show strong expression and co-localization with SGLT1 of the β2-adrenergic receptor ( -AR) at the enterocyte apical membrane and reveal its role in stimulating glucose uptake from the gut by the sodium/glucose-linked transporter, SGLT1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Mol Sci
January 2023
Department of Chronic Diseases, Metabolism & Ageing (CHROMETA), KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Short-chain fatty acids as well as their bacterial producers are of increasing interest in inflammatory bowel diseases. Although less studied compared to butyrate, acetate might also be of interest as it may be less toxic to epithelial cells, stimulate butyrate-producing bacteria by cross-feeding, and have anti-inflammatory and barrier-protective properties. Moreover, one of the causative factors of the probiotic potency of var.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
October 2022
LAQV, REQUIMTE, Departamento de Ciências Químicas, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade do Porto, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal.
Bacterial biofilms of , formed on implants, have a massive impact on the increasing number of antimicrobial resistance cases. The current treatment for biofilm-associated infections is based on the administration of antibiotics, failing to target the biofilm matrix. This work is focused on the development of multiple lipid nanoparticles (MLNs) encapsulating the antibiotic moxifloxacin (MOX).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommun Biol
October 2022
Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
The increasing prevalence of candidosis caused by Candida glabrata is related to its ability to acquire azole resistance. Although azole resistance mechanisms are well known, the mechanisms for azole import into fungal cells have remained obscure. In this work, we have characterized two hexose transporters in C.
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