Jovelyn Unay

University of Geneva | UNIGE · Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine (MIMOL)

Many bacteria decorate flagellin with sialic acid-like sugars such as pseudaminic acid (Pse) by O-glycosylation on serine or threonine residues. Evidence for sufficiency of sialylation by a conserved flagellin glycosyltransferase (fGT) system is lacking, presumably because of (a) missing component(s). Here, we reconstituted two Maf-type fGTs from t...

Many bacterial flagella are specifically O-glycosylated with nonulosonic acids, including the sialic acid derivatives, pseudaminic acid or legionaminic acid. Unlike protein glycosyltransferases that are extracytoplasmic, flagellin glycosyltransferases (fGTs) act cytoplasmically with unknown donor or acceptor specificities. The recent reconstitution...

In legume crops, formation of developmentally mature nodules is a prerequisite for efficient nitrogen fixation by populations of rhizobial bacteroids established inside nodule cells. Development of root nodules, and concomitant microbial colonization of plant cells, are constrained by sets of recognition signals exchanged by infecting rhizobia and...

Growth of most angiosperms, including cereal crops, is constrained by a limited accessibility of nitrogen in soils. Until now, agriculture relied extensively upon chemical fertilizers to compensate for NPK deficiencies in fields, often at considerable ecological costs. Making better use of plant-bacteria associations could lower the environmental i...

The success of hybrid rice in increasing grain yield is hampered by its susceptibility to bacterial blight, which causes significant reduction in grain yield. This study aimed to determine the presence of introgressed resistance genes in improved maintainer and restorer parent lines; assess the genetic similarity of the improved parent lines to the...