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The Role of Herbivore-induced Plant Volatiles in Trophic Interactions: The Swiss Connection
Get PDFIt is increasingly evident that plants actively respond to the threats and challenges that they come to face while growing. This is particularly manifested in the dynamic responses to insect herbivory, especially in terms of the volatile compounds that the attacked plants emit. Indeed, many plants respond to insect-inflicted damage with the synthesis and release of volatile organic compounds. These emissions, commonly referred to as herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs), play important roles in the interactions between the emitting plants and their biotic environment. The odorous signal can be picked up and exploited by various organisms: neighbouring plants, herbivores and their natural enemies, such as predators and parasitoid wasps. Coincidence or not, scientists currently working in Switzerland have made numerous key contributions to the work in this field. By highlighting their work, we attempt to give a somewhat historic overview of this field of research
Swiss Summer School on Chemical Biology, Les Diablerets, September 11-15, 2022: Part A: Scientific Exchange in an Alpine Environment; Part B: The Students\u27 Experience
No full textFrom Synthesis to Microstructure: Engineering the High-entropy Ceramic Materials of the Future
Get PDFSintering and microstructural development in ceramics has long been studied in a two-dimensional grain size-density space, with only texture (i.e. deviation of grain orientation from random) used to gain first insights into additional parametric spaces. Following an increased interest for grain boundary engineering and a deeper understanding of dopant effects on sintering and grain boundaries, the theory of complexion transitions for ceramics has been introduced over the last decade, providing a new base for advanced microstructure engineering in ceramics. With emergence of high entropy ceramics over the last 5 years, the combination of both yields new grounds for exploration and engineering of functional ceramic materials of the future
Assessing National Halocarbon Emissions Using Regional Atmospheric Measurements
Get PDFTo mitigate the environmental impacts of synthetic halocarbons it is crucial to quantify their emissions to the atmosphere on different spatial scales. For this, top-down modelling approaches were developed, relying on atmospheric concentration observations. However, increased sensitivity on country-scale is needed, requiring a denser measurement network and models operating on a regional scale. In this light, we conducted an extensive study to assess Swiss halocarbon emissions, with high sensitivity to the regional emissions sources
Horns, Scales, Beaks: The Versatility of Keratin: Chemical Education
No full textThe structures of α- and β-keratins and their roles in nature are introduced, along with how demand for keratin-based products impacts on pangolin and rhinoceros conservation
Targeting Extracellular Bacterial Proteases for the Development of Novel Antivirulence Agents
Get PDFAs resistance to clinically available antibiotics persistently increases, applying new strategies to target pathogenic bacteria are paramount to design effective drugs. Bacterial proteases play vital roles in cell viability and stress response, contributing to the pathogenicity of the resistant bacteria. Targeting these extracellular enzymes by antivirulence therapy is a prominent strategy in combating multi-drug resistant bacteria. By preventing the colonization and infiltration of the host, this method can lower selection pressure and reduce resistance development significantly. Here, we review the role of bacterial proteases, the rise of antivirulence therapy and we report on the development of novel antivirulence agents targeting two key virulence factors: elastase B (LasB) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and collagenase H (ColH) from Clostridium histolyticum
Computational Vibrational Spectroscopy
Get PDFVibrational spectroscopy is a powerful technique to characterize the near-equilibrium dynamics of molecules in the gas and the condensed phase. This contribution summarizes efforts from computer-based methods to gain insight into the relationship between structure and spectroscopic response. Methods for this purpose include physics-based and machine-learned energy functions, and methods that separate sampling conformational space and determining the data for spectral analysis such as map-based techniques
The Bitter Taste Receptor TAS2R14 as a Drug Target
Get PDFG protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate most of our physiological responses to hormones, neurotransmitters and environmental stimulants. Besides human senses like vision and olfaction, taste perception is mostly mediated by GPCRs. Hence, the bitter taste receptor family TAS2R comprises 25 distinct receptors and plays a key role in food acceptance and drug compliance. The TAS2R14 subtype is the most broadly tuned bitter taste receptor, recognizing a range of chemically highly diverse agonists. Besides other tissues, it is expressed in human airway smooth muscle and may represent a novel drug target for airway diseases. Several natural products as well as marketed drugs including flufenamic acid have been identified to activate TAS2R14, but higher potency ligands are needed to investigate the ligand-controlled physiological function and to facilitate the targeted modulate for potential future clinical applications. A combination of structure-based molecular modeling with chemical synthesis and in vitro profiling recently resulted in new flufenamic acid agonists with improved TAS2R14 potency and provided a validated and refined structural model of ligand–TAS2R14 interactions, which can be applied for future drug design projects
