Julia Kleetz

• Dr. rer. nat.
• PostDoc at University of British Columbia

One of the most common pathways for the biosynthesis of the phospholipid phosphatidylcholine (PC) in bacteria is the successive three-fold N -methylation of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) catalyzed by phospholipid N -methyltransferases (Pmts). Pmts with different activities have been described in a number of mesophilic bacteria. In the present study...

Escherichia coli is the daily workhorse in molecular biology research labs and an important platform microorganism in white biotechnology. Its cytoplasmic membrane is primarily composed of the phospholipids phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylglycerol (PG), and cardiolipin (CL). As in most other bacteria, the typical eukaryotic phosphatidylc...

Fungal endophytes are an integral part of the leaf microbiome of forest trees. Most of these endophytes are horizontally transmitted, however little is known about their assembly drivers. Endophytic assemblages differ in composition according to geography and host individuals. In addition, climate and genetic diversity are also reported to lead to...

Phosphatidic acid (PA) is the precursor of most phospholipids like phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, and cardiolipin. In bacteria, its biosynthesis begins with the acylation of glycerol‐3‐phosphate to lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), which is further acylated to PA by the PlsC enzyme. Some bacteria, like the plant pathogen Xanthomonas cam...

A promising yet clinically unexploited antibiotic target in difficult-to-treat Gram-negative bacteria is LpxC, the key enzyme in the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharides, which are the major constituents of the outer membrane. Despite the development of dozens of chemically diverse LpxC inhibitor molecules, it is essentially unknown how bacteria cou...

Phosphatidylcholine (PC) is critical for the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between rhizobia and legumes. We characterized three PC biosynthesis pathways in Rhizobium leguminosarum and evaluated their impact on nitrogen fixation in clover nodules. In the presence of choline, a PC synthase catalyzes the condensation of cytidine diphosphate-diacylglycerol...

A promising but yet clinically unexploited antibiotic target in difficult-to-treat Gram-negative bacteria is LpxC, the key enzyme in the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which are the major constituents of the outer membrane. To gain insights into the mode of action of five different LpxC inhibitors, we conducted a comparative phenotypic...