Earlier in June, from the 10th to the 13th, was the 69th Annual Meeting from the Canadian Society of Microbiologists in Sherbrooke. As a member of the local organizing committee with Vincent Burrus and Louis-Charles Fortier, I was very involved in the organization of the conference. The scientific program was of great quality, with passionate invited speakers, and many scientific exchanges. Students from our three laboratories played key roles for the proper running of the conference, organizing the student mixer, answering 1001 questions at the welcoming desk, putting indications on the campus, managing our volunteer « microphone runners », and much more. David and Vincent also presented their project in posters, and got many positive feedbacks. It was a rich and a stimulating experience for all of us!!
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The most recent results of Vincent, a PhD student, were recently accepted in the journal Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI)! His work characterizes germination and sporulation of Bacillus subtilis on Arabidopsis thaliana roots. We observed that spores inoculated on A. thaliana seedlings germinate rapidly, but the vegetative state does not last since bacteria revert back to being spores a few days later. Additionally, A. thaliana seedlings appear to stimulate sporulation of the surrounding B. subtilis when there are direct contacts between plants and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs). This fundamental study has important implication at an applied level, since Bacillus-based biofertilizers are sprayed as spores on plants in agricultural settings. However, abundance and persistent of this dormant state, which is possibly less beneficial for the plant, was never examined. Our study is one of the first that investigates this question, and will allow us to optimize the usage of Bacillus species as plant-beneficial bacteria. Interested? Read more here : https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/MPMI-10-18-0278-R . Congratulation Vincent!
The first of many articles (we are optimists!) coming out of collaboration with my colleague Jean-Philippe Bellenger (chemistry department, Université de Sherbrooke) was recently accepted in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Our PhD student Adrien Rizzi used an elegant combination of analytical chemistry (ICP-MS - inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) and microbiology techniques to follow in parallel intracellular iron, biofilm formation and cell growth of B. subtilis within a biofilm. This approach allowed us to demonstrate that in a liquid non-shaking medium, siderophore production and biofilm formation are both required for the cells to acquire extracellular iron. These findings open very interesting and important perspectives on the role of biofilm formation in iron acquisition in natural environment. You can read more about this here.
Snow came early this year in Sherbrooke. Thankfully, we had a couple of good news to keep us warm. Following Zhihui Xu invitation, I was part of the “International Workshop on Plant-Microbe Interactions in the Rhizosphere” as a foreign expert. The Nanjing Agricultural University of China, located in Nanjing, not far from Shanghai, was at the origin of this meeting. This extraordinary opportunity allowed me to network and discuss collaborations with researchers from Qirong Shen labortory. I also got the opportunity to discuss science with the other researchers present at the meeting, including my former postdoc advisor Pr. Roberto Kolter. This visit in China was a very enriching experience, research-wise of course, but also because I got to discover a part of China and learning how science is done there. My job often gives me the opportunity to visit and discuss with scientists from all around the world, which I think constitute an amazing perk of life in academia. The second good news? I will tell you more when the link to the article is made available…
Earlier this fall, we published a new article in the open-access ASM journal mSphere, which describe how biofilm formation in B. subtilis drives the transfer of the integrative and conjugative element ICEBs1. This very efficient transfer is independent of the activation of ICEBs1, i.e. its excision levels, which are not affected by biofilm formation. Interestingly, we observed that production of the extracellular biofilm matrix by recipient but not donor cells is crucial for the conjugative transfer. This work has major implications in the current understanding of horizontal gene transfer in environmental conditions. Few articles have described conjugation events within biofilms, and none have examined ICEs, albeit these elements are the most prevalent in bacterial genomes and highly involved in antibiotic gene resistance transfer. Importantly, this characterization was performed in a native context, i.e. without artificial activation of ICEBs1 excmsphere.asm.org/content/3/5/e00473-18ision, which is rarely the case for ICE characterization. Thus, we demonstrate how biofilm lifestyle favors genetic transfer, and may greatly accelerate antibiotics resistance dissemination. Interested? See the full article here .
There were a lot of movements this summer in the laboratory. First, I want to congratulate Jessica, who successfully completed her master degree!! Also, Assena went back to Belgium after doing a very interesting internship in collaboration with Plant Select, a horticole company. This fall we are welcoming David, who will do a master degree project on the involvement of bacterial biofilms in Alzheimer disease. Alexandre also recently joined us from France to do an internship on ICEBs1. During these sunny days we also sent scientific emissaries in various meetings. Vincent went with me at the 11th International PGPR workshop in Victoria, BC, where he presented a poster on Bacillus subtilis sporulation on plant roots. He got many positive feedbacks, which is encouraging us in writing up the story into an article. Frédéric went to the Plasmid Biology 2018 meeting at Seattle, where he presented his results that were recently accepted for publication – to be continued! Finally, Julie assisted to the 13th European Nitrogen Fixation Conference, in Stockholm, where she presented an outline of the PhD project. Thus, many interesting meetings and discussions happened on our science, which motivated everybody. To conclude this blog post, a little visibility for an important event happening in Sherbrooke: the 69th Annual Conference of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists will be held on our campus (Université de Sherbrooke) from june 10th to june 13th. Sessions themes are very diverse, and will cover subjects in environmental and applied microbiology, global health and microorganisms and system biology. For more details, check out the poster below.
The fonds de recherche du Québec were generous with our laboratory and our collaborators this year, since we obtained grants for three projects to develop new research and collaborations. These projects will explore conjugative transfer within biofilms (FRQ-NT Team research), the involvement of bacterial biofilms in Alzheimer’s disease (FRQ AUDACE) and will allow us to establish a collaboration and student exchanges with Glyco-MEV laboratory from Université de Rouen (FRQ-NT Samuel-de-Champlain). Our lab is growing new branches (or roots?), driven by scientific curiosity and the conviction that collaborations are fundamental to productive and innovative research.
Want to know more about the research going on in the lab, and our star microorganism? This podcast could be of interest (in french). As usual, the fall session was quite busy in our small lab, and even outside of it. Martin and Julie are back in the lab to begin graduate studies. We also welcomed Jean-Sébastien, an undergrad intern coming from the microbiology program at Université de Sherbrooke. This winter, Catherine, another undergrad intern, will also join us to pursue a project in the lab.
We are currently in the midst of writing articles and abstracts to be submitted to various meetings. I will have some pretty neat scientific stories to share very soon! In the meantime, take a look to the new “Etcetera” section of the website, to see all the lab activities, involving or not the PBB cup. Of note, the cup is currently in my office, but I have the feeling it will not stay there very long….
When we think about June, we usually think about summer vacation and strawberries. But it appears that it is also a very active month for microbiology-related conferences! Thus, we send some ambassadors in various meetings.
Jessica and Maude went to the conference of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists (CSM) in Waterloo, Ontario. They really enjoyed their experience, and had the occasion to discuss their results in poster presentations. A last little note, congratulation to Frédéric, who obtained a master degree scholarship from Fonds de recherche du Québec -Nature et technologie (FRQ-NT) in the 2017-2018 competition.
Have a great summer! Microbes fan, you are invited to take a look at the Small Things Considered blog, by Moselio (Elio) Schaechter & Roberto Kolter. This blog contains articles on a (very) wide variety of microbiology-related subjects that will surely trigger your interest. Among the recent post I particularly appreciated the Fungomania series on fungi and their amazing properties, as well as the interview with Francisco Mojica, discoverer of CRISPR.
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