Biology subjects

Juli Pereto

Publications and source records attributed to Juli Pereto.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

Metabolic complementation in bacterial communities: necessary conditions and optimality

Bacterial communities may display metabolic complementation, in which different members of the association partially contribute to the same biosynthetic pathway. In this way, the end product of the pathway is synthesized by the community as a whole. However, the emergence and the benefits of such complementation are poorly understood. Herein we present a simple model to analyze the metabolic interactions among bacteria, including the host in the case of endosymbiotic bacteria. The model considers two cell populations, with both cell types encoding for the same linear biosynthetic pathway. We have found that, for metabolic complementation to emerge as an optimal strategy, both product inhibition and large permeabilities are needed. In the light of these results, we then consider the patterns found in the case of tryptophan biosynthesis in the endosymbiont consortium hosted by the aphid Cinara cedri. Using in-silico computed physicochemical properties of metabolites of this and other biosynthetic pathways, we verified that the splitting point of the pathway corresponds to themost permeable intermediate.

Systems Biology↗

bioRxiv2016

Nature lessons: the whitefly bacterial endosymbiont is a minimal amino acid factory with unusual energetics

Bacterial lineages that establish obligate symbiotic associations with insect hosts are known to possess highly reduced genomes with streamlined metabolic functions that are commonly focused on amino acid and vitamin synthesis. We constructed a genome-scale metabolic model of the whitefly bacterial endosymbiont Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum to study the energy production capabilities using stoichiometric analysis. Strikingly, the results suggest that the energetic metabolism of the bacterial endosymbiont relies on the use of pathways related to the synthesis of amino acids and carotenoids. A deeper insight showed that the ATP production via carotenoid synthesis may also have a potential role in the regulation of amino acid production. The coupling of energy production to anabolism suggest that minimization of metabolic networks as a consequence of genome size reduction does not necessarily limit the biosynthetic potential of obligate endosymbionts.

Systems Biology↗

bioRxiv2016

The Software Crisis of Synthetic Biology

In fifteen years, Synthetic Biology (SB) has moved from proof-of-concept designs to several flagship achievements. Standardisation efforts are still under way, basic engineering concepts such as modularity and orthogonality are still controversial in biology, and making predictions from computer models is still unreliable. A deep characterization in the pattern of re-use of biological blocks in SB has not been attempted to date. We have compared the topological organisation of two different technological networks, one associated to a standard, large-scale software repository and the second provided by the Registry of Standard Biological Parts (RSBP). Our results strongly suggest that software engineering, and not industrial engineering, is the closest complex system to SB. In both cases, combining standard or quasi-standard components assembly with tinkering may not be at odds with success.

Systems Biology↗

bioRxiv2015

A highly diverse, desert-like microbial biocenosis on solar panels in a Mediterranean city

Microorganisms colonize a wide range of natural and artificial environments although there are hardly any data on the microbial ecology of one the most widespread man-made extreme structures: solar panels. Here we show that solar panels in a Mediterranean city (Valencia, Spain) harbor a highly diverse microbial community with more than 500 different species per panel, most of which belong to drought-, heat- and radiation-adapted bacterial genera, and sun-irradiation adapted epiphytic fungi. The taxonomic and functional profiles of this microbial community and the characterization of selected culturable bacteria reveal the existence of a diverse mesophilic microbial community on the panels surface. This biocenosis proved to be more similar to the ones inhabiting deserts than to any human or urban microbial ecosystem. This unique microbial community shows different day/night proteomic profiles; it is dominated by reddish pigment- and sphingolipid-producers, and is adapted to withstand circadian cycles of high temperatures, desiccation and solar radiation.

Microbiology↗