368 results match your criteria: "Hans-Knoell-institute[Affiliation]"
Front Immunol
December 2024
Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Diagnostics, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Background: The serine protease like (Spl) proteases of are a family of six proteases whose function and impact on virulence are poorly understood. Here we propose alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT), an important immunomodulatory serine protease inhibitor as target of SplD, E and F. AAT is an acute phase protein, interacting with many proteases and crucial for prevention of excess tissue damage by neutrophil elastase during the innate immune response to infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
October 2024
Section of Experimental Virology, Institute of Medical Microbiology, Center for Molecular Biomedicine (CMB), Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Introduction: Influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis is associated with high mortality rates and limited treatment options. The current standard practice involves treating each pathogen separately. However, the use of antifungal drugs can lead to serious side effects, and the presence of triazole-resistant strains can complicate antifungal therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFmSphere
November 2024
Department of Molecular Pathogenicity Mechanisms, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology-Hans Knoell Institute, Jena, Germany.
Host cell damage is a key parameter for research in infection biology, drug testing, and substance safety screening. In this study, we introduce a luciferase reporter system as a new and reliable assay to measure cell damage and validate it with the pathogenic yeast, , as a test case. We transduced human epithelial cell lines with a lentiviral vector to stably express an optimized luciferase enzyme, Nanoluc.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEBioMedicine
November 2024
Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Unit, University Hospital Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Str. 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany; Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Str. 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany. Electronic address:
Biomacromolecules
September 2024
School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Fungal pathogens cause over 6.5 million life-threatening systemic infections annually, with mortality rates ranging from 20 to 95%, even with medical intervention. The World Health Organization has recently emphasized the urgent need for new antifungal drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
August 2024
Department of Microbial Pathogenicity Mechanisms, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans Knoell Institute, Jena, Germany.
More than two million people worldwide are affected by life-threatening, invasive fungal infections annually. Candida species are the most common cause of nosocomial, invasive fungal infections and are associated with mortality rates above 40%. Despite the increasing incidence of drug-resistance, the development of novel antifungal formulations has been limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVaccine
August 2024
Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Unit, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, 97080, Germany; Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, 97080, Germany.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) are recommended to receive at least three spike-antigen exposures to generate basic immunity and to mediate herd protection of vulnerable patients. So far, less attention has been put on the cellular immune response induced by homologous (three BTN162b2mRNA doses) or heterologous (mRNA-1273 as third dose building on two BTN162bmRNA doses) and the immunological impact of breakthrough infections (BTIs). Therefore, in 356 vaccinated HCWs with or without BTIs the Anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike-IgG concentrations and avidities and B- and T-cell-reactivity against SARS-CoV-2-Spike-S1- and Nucleocapsid-antigens were assessed with Interferon-gamma-ELISpot and by flow-cytometry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
July 2024
Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
mBio
August 2024
Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
an opportunistic fungal pathogen, produces the quorum-sensing molecule farnesol, which we have shown alters the transcriptional response and phenotype of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DCs), including their cytokine secretion and ability to prime T cells. This is partially dependent on the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-γ), which has numerous ligands, including the sphingolipid metabolite sphingosine 1-phosphate. Sphingolipids are a vital component of membranes that affect membrane protein arrangement and phagocytosis of by DCs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobiol Mol Biol Rev
June 2024
MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.
SUMMARYA significant increase in the incidence of -mediated infections has been observed in the last decade, mainly due to rising numbers of susceptible individuals. Recently, the World Health Organization published its first fungal pathogen priority list, with species listed in medium, high, and critical priority categories. This review is a synthesis of information and recent advances in our understanding of two of these species and .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJAC Antimicrob Resist
June 2024
Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, University Hospital Cologne, Institute of Translational Research, Herderstraße 52, 50931 Cologne, Germany.
Microbiol Spectr
May 2024
Department of Microbial Pathogenicity Mechanisms, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans Knoell Institute, Jena, Germany.
Glob Chang Biol
April 2024
School of Biological Sciences, The Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P.R. China.
Mycoses
April 2024
Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Background: The emergence of the pathogenic yeast Candida auris is of global concern due to its ability to cause hospital outbreaks and develop resistance against all antifungal drug classes. Based on published data for baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sphingolipid biosynthesis, which is essential for maintaining membrane fluidity and formation of lipid rafts, could offer a target for additive treatment.
Methods: We analysed the susceptibility of C.
J Exp Med
May 2024
Departments of Immunology and Regenerative Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
The mycobiota are a critical part of the gut microbiome, but host-fungal interactions and specific functional contributions of commensal fungi to host fitness remain incompletely understood. Here, we report the identification of a new fungal commensal, Kazachstania heterogenica var. weizmannii, isolated from murine intestines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNature
March 2024
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
The fungus Candida albicans frequently colonizes the human gastrointestinal tract, from which it can disseminate to cause systemic disease. This polymorphic species can transition between growing as single-celled yeast and as multicellular hyphae to adapt to its environment. The current dogma of C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Microbiol
March 2024
Department of Microbial Pathogenicity Mechanisms, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans Knoell Institute (HKI), Jena, Germany.
The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans damages host cells via its peptide toxin, candidalysin. Before secretion, candidalysin is embedded in a precursor protein, Ece1, which consists of a signal peptide, the precursor of candidalysin and seven non-candidalysin Ece1 peptides (NCEPs), and is found to be conserved in clinical isolates. Here we show that the Ece1 polyprotein does not resemble the usual precursor structure of peptide toxins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Med Microbiol
March 2024
Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Würzburg, Germany.
Purpose: Fusarium keratitis is a severe infection of the anterior eye, frequently leading to keratoplasty or surgical removal of the affected eye. A major risk factor for infection is the use of contact lenses. Inadequate hygiene precautions and mold-growth permissive storage fluids are important risk factors for fungal keratitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEuro Surveill
January 2024
University Hospital Würzburg, Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Unit, Würzburg, Germany.
is a Gram-negative rod which may cause invasive infections when they contaminate liquid medical products. After was detected in blood cultures and a stem cell product from three patients in a tertiary care hospital in Germany, whole genome sequencing of these three isolates and two water isolates from the environment was performed. Core genome multilocus sequence typing analysis showed that the three patient isolates were closely related and there was a large distance to the environmental isolates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Immunol
March 2024
Department of Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry, Institute of Pharmacy, Greifswald University, Greifswald, Germany.
Candida albicans causes opportunistic infections ranging from mucosal mycoses to life-threatening systemic infections in immunocompromised patients. During C. albicans infection, leukotrienes and prostaglandins are formed from arachidonic acid by 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) and cyclooxygenases, respectively to amplify inflammatory conditions, but also to initiate macrophage infiltration to achieve tissue homeostasis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrob Agents Chemother
February 2024
Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Invasive candidiasis is a major hospital-acquired infection. Usually, echinocandins are considered first-line treatment. However, resistant phenotypes have emerged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFmBio
December 2023
Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
is a leading human fungal pathogen that often causes life-threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals. The ability of to transition between yeast and filamentous forms is key to its virulence, and this occurs in response to many host-relevant cues, including engulfment by host macrophages. While previous efforts identified genes required for filamentation in other conditions, the genes important for this morphological transition upon internalization by macrophages remained largely enigmatic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Mater
December 2023
School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Cork, T12 K8AF, Ireland.
In this paper, a roadmap is provided for the regulatory approval of one of the exciting and dynamic drug delivery fields, microneedles, by using a Quality by Design approach to pharmaceutical product development. In this regard, a quality target product profile (QTPP) and the critical quality attributes (CQA) of microneedles are identified. A case study of the recently patented method of fabricating glass microneedles entirely from a therapeutic agent, thus eliminating the requirement for additional excipients is discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeliyon
November 2023
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Jena University Hospital, Am Klinikum 1, 07740, Jena, Germany.
Background & Aims: Excretory liver failure is frequently associated with poor prognosis in critically ill patients. It is characterized by the loss of canalicular membrane export pumps at the hepatocyte membrane. The membrane export pump Multidrug resistant-associated protein (MRP) 2 is pivotal in hepatocytes for brushed membrane morphology and transport of various metabolites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
November 2023
Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany.
Background: Quarantine is one of the most effective interventions to contain an infectious disease outbreak, yet it is one of the most disruptive. We investigated the quarantine of an entire village to better understand risk communication requirements for groups.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, mixed-methods survey study on a single cohort of adult residents in Neustadt am Rennsteig, Germany, six weeks after the removal of a 14-day mandatory community quarantine.