Ludovic Giloteaux

Cornell University | CU · Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics

In healthy individuals, physical exercise improves cardiovascular health and muscle strength, alleviates fatigue and reduces the risk of chronic diseases. Although exercise is suggested as a lifestyle intervention to manage various chronic illnesses, it negatively affects people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), who...

In healthy individuals, physical exercise improves cardiovascular health and muscle strength, alleviates fatigue, and reduces risk of chronic diseases. Although exercise is suggested as a lifestyle intervention to manage various chronic illnesses, it negatively affects people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), who suf...

Background Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex, heterogenous disease characterized by unexplained persistent fatigue and other features including cognitive impairment, myalgias, post-exertional malaise, and immune system dysfunction. Cytokines are present in plasma and encapsulated in extracellular vesicles (EVs...

Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is a hallmark symptom of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). We monitored the evolution of 1,157 plasma metabolites in 60 ME/CFS cases (45 females, 15 males) and in 45 matched healthy control subjects (30 females, 15 males) before and after two maximal Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test (CPET) chall...

Background Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating disease of unknown etiology lasting for a minimum of 6 months but usually for many years, with features including fatigue, cognitive impairment, myalgias, post-exertional malaise, and immune system dysfunction. Dysregulation of cytokine signaling could give ris...

OZ1, an RNA editing factor that controls the editing of 14 cytidine targets in Arabidopsis chloroplasts, contains two RanBP2-type zinc finger (Znf) domains. The RanBP2 Znf is a C4-type member of the broader zinc finger family with unique functions and an unusually diverse distribution in plants. The domain can mediate interactions with proteins or...

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex disease with no known cause or mechanism. There is an increasing appreciation for the role of immune and metabolic dysfunction in the disease. ME/CFS has historically presented in outbreaks, often has a flu-like onset, and results in inflammatory symptoms. Patients suffer from...

Previous studies of acetate-promoted bioremediation of uranium-contaminated aquifers focused on Geobacter because no other microorganisms that can couple the oxidation of acetate with U(VI) reduction had been detected in situ. Monitoring the levels of methyl CoM reductase subunit A (mcrA) transcripts during an acetate-injection field experiment dem...

Patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) often suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms and many are diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Previous studies, including from our laboratory, have demonstrated that the ME/CFS gut bacterial composition is altered and less diverse when compared to healthy individual...

Previous studies of in situ bioremediation of uranium-contaminated groundwater with acetate injections have focused on the role of Geobacter species in U(VI) reduction because of a lack of other abundant known U(VI)-reducing microorganisms. Monitoring the levels of methyl CoM reductase subunit A (mcrA) transcripts during an acetate-injection field...

Over the last dozen years, increasingly powerful DNA sequencing methods have allowed characterization of the microbes residing on and in humans in much greater detail than ever possible before. Abnormalities present in the gut microbiome-those microbial communities residing in our intestines-have now been observed in a number of diseases. One such...

Objective: Unknown ethiology Background: Patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) present with profound fatigue, flu-like symptoms, pain, cognitive impairment, orthostatic intolerance, post-exertional malaise (PEM), and exacerbation of some or all of the baseline symptoms. Case Report: We report on a pair of 34-year...

Background: Gastrointestinal disturbances are among symptoms commonly reported by individuals diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). However, whether ME/CFS is associated with an altered microbiome has remained uncertain. Here, we profiled gut microbial diversity by sequencing 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rR...

The hyperthermophilic archaeon Ferroglobus placidus can utilize a wide variety of electron donors, including hydrocarbons and aromatic compounds, with Fe(III) serving as electron acceptor. In Fe(III)-reducing bacteria that have been studied to date, this process is mediated by c-type cytochromes and type IV pili. However, there is currently little...

Field-scale biostimulation and desorption tracer experiments conducted in a uranium (U) contaminated, shallow alluvial aquifer have provided insight into the coupling of microbiology, biogeochemistry, and hydrogeology that control U mobility in the subsurface. Initial experiments successfully tested the concept that Fe-reducing bacteria such as Geo...

To gain an in-depth insight into the diversity and the distribution of genes under the particular evolutionary pressure of an arsenic-rich acid mine drainage (AMD), the genes involved in bacterial arsenic detoxification (arsB, ACR3) and arsenite oxidation (aioA) were investigated in sediment from Carnoulès (France), in parallel to the diversity and...

Ferroglobus placidus was discovered to oxidize completely the aromatic amino acids tyrosine, phenylalanine and tryptophan when Fe(III) oxide was provided as an electron acceptor. This property had not been reported previously for a hyperthermophilic archaeon. It appeared that F. placidus follows a pathway for phenylalanine and tryptophan degradatio...

Previous studies have suggested that protozoa prey on Fe(III)- and sulfate-reducing bacteria that are enriched when acetate is added to uranium contaminated subsurface sediments to stimulate U(VI) reduction. In order to determine whether protozoa continue to impact subsurface biogeochemistry after these acetate amendments have stopped, 18S rRNA and...

Geobacter species may be important agents in the bioremediation of organic and metal contaminants in the subsurface, but as yet unknown factors limit the in situ growth of subsurface Geobacter well below rates predicted by analysis of gene expression or in silico metabolic modeling. Analysis of the genomes of five different Geobacter species recove...

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a multi-system illness characterized, in part, by increased fatigue following minimal exertion, cognitive impairment, poor recovery to physical and other stressors, in addition to other symptoms. Unlike healthy subjects and other diseased populations who reproduce objective physiologica...

While microbial activities in environmental systems play a key role in the utilization and cycling of essential elements and compounds, microbial activity and growth frequently fluctuates in response to environmental stimuli and perturbations. To investigate these fluctuations within a saturated aquifer system, we monitored a carbon-stimulated popu...

Predicated orthologous proteins across eight sequenced Geobacter genomes. (XLSX)

Proteins exhibiting significant changes in abundance between the three stages of biostimulation, displayed as a percentage of the total number of proteins detected across the experiment (925). (DOCX)

Environmental 16S rRNA sequences used during phylogenetic tree construction in this study. (DOCX)

Nucleotide % similarity between full length 16S rRNA sequences from environmental and sequenced strains. (DOCX)

Shotgun proteomic data, showing raw spectral counts, normalized spectral counts, and calculated Z scores across the nine samples. (XLSX)

Plot layout at the Rifle IFRC. Acetate injection wells are labeled CG-01 thru CG-10. Downgradient monitoring well CD-01 is highlighted with a red box. (TIFF)

Proteomic sample clustering for quantitative analysis. Samples collected after 5, 8, and 10 days were grouped into the “early” phase of biostimulation, 13, 15, and 17 days into the “middle” stage, and 29, 36, and 43 days into the “late” stage. Clustering was performed using geochemical data (square root transformed) from each sampling time point (F...

Significance Transcripts in plant organelles are altered by conversion of cytidines to uridines in a process termed RNA editing. Members of two protein families have been identified in the plant editosome, but its complete composition is unknown. Now a unique protein that contains an RNA recognition motif has been found to be essential for editing...

The importance of bacteria in the anaerobic bioremediation of groundwater polluted with organic and/or metal contaminants is well recognized and in some instances so well understood that modeling of the in situ metabolic activity of the relevant subsurface microorganisms in response to changes in subsurface geochemistry is feasible. However, a pote...

Whole-genome microarray analysis of Geobacter sulfurreducens grown on insoluble Fe(III) oxide or Mn(IV) oxide versus soluble Fe(III) citrate revealed significantly different expression patterns. The most up-regulated genes, omcS and omcT, encode cell surface c-type cytochromes, OmcS being required for Fe(III) and Mn(IV) oxide reduction. Other elect...

Molecular tools that can provide an estimate of the in situ growth rate of Geobacter species could improve understanding of dissimilatory metal reduction in a diversity of environments. Whole-genome microarray analyses of a subsurface isolate of Geobacter uraniireducens, grown under a variety of conditions, identified a number of genes that are dif...

A three-year survey on Sulfate-Reducing-Bacteria (SRB) was conducted in the waters of the arsenic-rich Acid-Mine-Drainage (AMD) located at Carnoulès (France) in order to determine the influence of environmental parameters on their community structure. The source (S5 station) exhibited most extreme conditions with pH lowering to ~1.2; iron, sulfate...

The possibility of arsenic release and the potential role of Geobacter in arsenic biogeochemistry during in situ uranium bioremediation was investigated because increased availability of organic matter has been associated with substantial releases of arsenic in other subsurface environments. In a field experiment conducted at the Rifle, CO study si...

Mechanisms for electron transfer within microbial aggregates derived from an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor converting brewery waste to methane were investigated in order to better understand the function of methanogenic consortia. The aggregates were electrically conductive, with conductivities 3-fold higher than the conductivities previo...

By their metabolic activities, microorganisms have a crucial role in the biogeochemical cycles of elements. The complete understanding of these processes requires, however, the deciphering of both the structure and the function, including synecologic interactions, of microbial communities. Using a metagenomic approach, we demonstrated here that an...

A Microcoleus sp. consortium, obtained from the Ebro delta microbial mat, was maintained under different conditions including uncontaminated, lead-contaminated, and acidic conditions. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and 16S rRNA gene library analyses were performed in order to determine the effect of lead and culture conditions on...

Geobacter species specialize in making electrical contacts with extracellular electron acceptors and other organisms. This permits Geobacter species to fill important niches in a diversity of anaerobic environments. Geobacter species appear to be the primary agents for coupling the oxidation of organic compounds to the reduction of insoluble Fe(III...

New primers were designed for the amplification of dsrAB genes by nested PCR to investigate the diversity of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes (SRP) in environments with low bacterial cell density. The success of the nested PCR for the determination of SRP diversity was estimated by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis in the Reigo...

At least three plant gene families are required for chloroplast and/or mitochondrial C-to-U RNA editing, which is carried out by nuclear-encoded protein complexes. Members of the large pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR)-containing protein family are site-specific recognition factors. PPR proteins evidently bind to cis-elements immediately upstream of t...