37 research outputs found
Pseudomonas aeruginosa Adaptation to Lungs of Cystic Fibrosis Patients Leads to Lowered Resistance to Phage and Protist Enemies
Pathogenic life styles can lead to highly specialized interactions with host species, potentially resulting in fitness trade-offs in other ecological contexts. Here we studied how adaptation of the environmentally transmitted bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to cystic fibrosis (CF) patients affects its survival in the presence of natural phage (14/1, ΦKZ, PNM and PT7) and protist (Tetrahymena thermophila and Acanthamoebae polyphaga) enemies. We found that most of the bacteria isolated from relatively recently intermittently colonised patients (1-25 months), were innately phage-resistant and highly toxic for protists. In contrast, bacteria isolated from long time chronically infected patients (2-23 years), were less efficient in both resisting phages and killing protists. Moreover, chronic isolates showed reduced killing of wax moth larvae (Galleria mellonella) probably due to weaker in vitro growth and protease expression. These results suggest that P. aeruginosa long-term adaptation to CF-lungs could trade off with its survival in aquatic environmental reservoirs in the presence of microbial enemies, while lowered virulence could reduce pathogen opportunities to infect insect vectors; factors that are both likely to result in poorer environmental transmission. From an applied perspective, phage therapy could be useful against chronic P. aeruginosa lung infections that are often characterized by multidrug resistance: chronic isolates were least resistant to phages and their poor growth will likely slow down the emergence of beneficial resistance mutations
The Putative Liquid-Liquid Transition is a Liquid-Solid Transition in Atomistic Models of Water
We use numerical simulation to examine the possibility of a reversible
liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water and related systems. In
particular, for two atomistic models of water, we have computed free energies
as functions of multiple order parameters, where one is density and another
distinguishes crystal from liquid. For a range of temperatures and pressures,
separate free energy basins for liquid and crystal are found, conditions of
phase coexistence between these phases are demonstrated, and time scales for
equilibration are determined. We find that at no range of temperatures and
pressures is there more than a single liquid basin, even at conditions where
amorphous behavior is unstable with respect to the crystal. We find a similar
result for a related model of silicon. This result excludes the possibility of
the proposed liquid-liquid critical point for the models we have studied.
Further, we argue that behaviors others have attributed to a liquid-liquid
transition in water and related systems are in fact reflections of transitions
between liquid and crystal
The mechanism of uptake of multiple sugars by Saccharomyces cerevisiae in batch culture under fully aerobic conditions
Phages can constrain protist predation-driven attenuation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence in multienemy communities
Exponential Stability of Subspaces for Quantum Stochastic Master Equations
International audienceWe study the stability of quantum pure states and, more generally, subspaces for stochastic dynamics that describe continuously--monitored systems. We show that the target subspace is almost surely invariant if and only if it is invariant for the average evolution, and that the same equivalence holds for the global asymptotic stability. Moreover, we prove that a strict linear Lyapunov function for the average evolution always exists, and latter can be used to derive sharp bounds on the Lyapunov exponents of the associated semigroup. Nonetheless, we also show that taking into account the measurements can lead to an improved bound on stability rate for the stochastic, non-averaged dynamics. We discuss explicit examples where the almost sure stability rate can be made arbitrary large while the average one stays constant
Exponential Stability of Subspaces for Quantum Stochastic Master Equations
International audienceWe study the stability of quantum pure states and, more generally, subspaces for stochastic dynamics that describe continuously--monitored systems. We show that the target subspace is almost surely invariant if and only if it is invariant for the average evolution, and that the same equivalence holds for the global asymptotic stability. Moreover, we prove that a strict linear Lyapunov function for the average evolution always exists, and latter can be used to derive sharp bounds on the Lyapunov exponents of the associated semigroup. Nonetheless, we also show that taking into account the measurements can lead to an improved bound on stability rate for the stochastic, non-averaged dynamics. We discuss explicit examples where the almost sure stability rate can be made arbitrary large while the average one stays constant