Peter Pristas

• PhD
• Head of Department at University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik

Background The bacterial evolution and the emergence of new species are likely influenced by multiple forces, including long-term environmental pressure such as living in extreme conditions. In this study, the genomes of two potentially new Streptomyces species isolated from a former mine heap in Tarnowskie Góry in Poland, were analyzed. Results A...

Fomitopsis pinicola [Sw.] P. Karst. is one of the most common wood-decaying macrofungi which is adapted to growth under different environmental conditions, but little is known about its intraspecific variation in spatial distribution, function and substrate specificity in different habitats. To understand how the geographical distribution, trophic...

Background Hypersaline habitats, as extreme environments, are a great source of well-adapted organisms with unique properties as they have evolved various strategies to cope with these extreme conditions. Bioinformatics and genomic mining may shed light on evolutionary relationships among them. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the bio...

Halophilic microorganisms are of immense importance in various fields of biotechnology. There is a multitude of actual or potential applications in the research of environmentally friendly applications in biodegradation, decolorization, food biotechnology, and biopolymers production. Thirty-eight strains of halophilic bacteria were isolated from th...

An important feature of ruminal ciliates is their phenotypic plasticity, which makes their identification difficult. The common manifestation of the phenotypic plasticity in rumen ciliates is a change in their cell size and caudal spination. We analyzed various morphotypes of Epidinium with five caudal processes (spines) taken from the rumen of Eur...

The subsurface mine environments characterized by high levels of toxic metals and low nutrient availability represent an extreme threat to bacterial persistence. In recent study, the genomic analysis of the Acinetobacter johnsonii strain RB2-047 isolated from the Rozália Gold Mine in Slovakia was performed. As expected, the studied isolate showed a...

The genomes of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium bacteriophages were analysed for gene shuffling in the lytic cassettes of bacteriophages infecting. It was found that enterococcal bacteriophages could be classified into well-defined groups based on the size of their genomes and each size group had its own conserved gene composition of...

In Carpathians, the tinder polypore Fomes fomentarius (L.) Fr. is a well-known fungus commonly classified as frequent wood decomposer typical of beech forest stands. It is one of the most common wood-decaying macrofungi influencing structural stability, biomechanical properties and tree vitality of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). Until 2023, no publish...

Based on published anatomical-morphological and ecological characteristics and phylogenetic evidence, six species of the Ganoderma genus are known to occur in Europe, namely, G. applanatum (Pers.) Pat., G. adspersum (Schulzer) Donk, G. pfeifferi Bres., G. resinaceum Boud., G. carnosum Pat., and G. lucidum (Curtis) P. Karst. Molecular markers (DNA s...

Bacterial plasmids are important mobile genetic elements which often carry specific genes important for bacterial successful survival under various inhospitable environmental conditions. Most of the previous research has focused on large plasmids providing these beneficial traits to their host cells. In this study, small cryptic plasmid pALK1 (3 05...

Microbiota of sulfur-rich environments has been extensively studied due to the biotechnological potential of sulfur bacteria, or as a model of ancient life. Cold terrestrial sulfur springs are less studied compared to sulfur-oxidizing microbiota of hydrothermal vents, volcanic environments, or soda lakes. Despite that, several studies suggested tha...

Anthropogenic pollution often leads to the generation of technosols, technogenic soils with inhospitable conditions for all living organisms including microbiota. Aluminum production near Ziar nad Hronom (Slovakia) resulted in the creation of a highly alkaline and heavy-metal-rich brown mud landfill, from which a bacterial strain of a likely new sp...

Since the beginning of unicellular life, dissimilation reactions of autotrophic sulfur bacteria have been a crucial part of the biogeochemical sulfur cycle on Earth. A wide range of sulfur oxidation states is reflected in the diversity of metabolic pathways used by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. This metabolically and phylogenetically diverse group of...

In this paper, the growth requirements, fermentation pattern, and hydrolytic enzymatic activities of anaerobic ciliates collected from the hindgut of the African tropical millipede Archispirostreptus gigas are described. Single-cell molecular analysis showed that ciliates from the millipede hindgut could be assigned to the Nyctotherus velox and a n...

This study investigated the genetic variability and antibiotic resistance of Acinetobacter community depending on the stage of wastewater treatment in Kokšov-Bakša for the city of Košice (Slovakia). After cultivation, bacterial isolates were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), a...

Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, especially those from hot springs, have attracted the attention of microbiologists for more than 150 years. In contrast, the microbial diversity of cold sulfur springs remains largely unrecognized. Culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches were used to study the diversity of sulfur-oxidizing bacterial communiti...

Currently, there are over 200 officially registered sulfur springs in Slovakia, most of which are cold hydrogen sulfide springs with a characteristic strong odor of rotten eggs. Their typical inhabitants are filamentous sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. The aim of this study was to identify the major bacterial populations inhabiting sulfur springs in Slov...

Mine tailings represent a great environmental concern due to their high contents of heavy metals. Cultivation analysis of microbiota of Tarnowskie Góry (Poland) mine tailing showed the occurrence of bacteria with colony-forming units as low as 5.7 × 104 per one gram of dried substrate. Among 110 bacterial isolates identified by a combination of MAL...

In recent decades, the significant deterioration of the health status of honey bees has been observed throughout the world. One of the most severe factors affecting the health of bee colonies worldwide is American foulbrood disease. This devastating disease, with no known cure, is caused by the Gram-positive spore-forming bacteria of Paenibacillus...

Mining areas are characterized by extreme conditions significantly affecting the diversity of microbial communities. On the other side, mining environments can be sources of bacteria with various biotechnological applications. In this study, two bacterial isolates from mine drainage water of two tailings ponds Slovinky and Markušovce (Slovakia) wer...

Bjerkandera adusta is a species of common white rot polyporoid fungi found worldwide. Despite playing an important role in deadwood decay, the species strains are used in bioremediation due to its ability to degrade polycyclic hydrocarbons and some of them are important etiological agents of chronic coughs and are associated with lung inflammations...

The sulfur cycle participates significantly in life evolution. Some facultatively autotrophic microorganisms are able to thrive in extreme environments with limited nutrient availability where they specialize in obtaining energy by oxidation of reduced sulfur compounds. In our experiments focused on the characterization of halophilic bacteria from...

Tailings ponds Slovinky and Markušovce (Slovakia) belong to the group of high-risk areas threatening human health and the environment due to the high concentrations of potentially toxic elements. The aim of this study was to identify iron bacteria living in these extreme environments and to assess the impact of selected physicochemical parameters o...

Heat shock proteins 70 (Hsp70) are chaperones consisting of a nucleotide-binding domain (NBD) and a substrate-binding domain (SBD), the latter of which binds protein clients. After ATP binds to the NBD, the SBD α/β subdomains’ shared interface opens, and the open SBD docks to the NBD. Such allosteric effects are stabilized by the newly formed NBD-S...

Bacterial biosynthesis of vitamin B12 can occur via either aerobic or anaerobic route. While the aerobic pathway has been fully elucidated and understood, less is known about the anaerobic pathway. Selenomonas ruminantium is thought to be the main producer of this vitamin in rumen environment and must use the anaerobic pathway. In our work we found...

Technosols are artificial soils generated by diverse human activities and frequently contain toxic substances resulting from industrial processes. Due to lack of nutrients and extreme physico-chemical properties, they represent environments with limited bacterial colonization. Bacterial populations of technosols are dominated usually by Actinobacte...

Ganoderma is a cosmopolitan genus of wood-decaying basidiomycetous macrofungi that can rot the roots and/or lower trunk. Among the standing trees, their presence often indicates that a hazard assessment may be necessary. These bracket fungi are commonly known for the crust-like upper surfaces of their basidiocarps and formation of white rot. Six sp...

In the study SEM, EDS, TEM and UV-vis analysis were used to investigate the biosorption, bioaccumulation and bioprecipitation/bioreduction of silver by freshwater green alga Parachlorella kessleri and to shed light on the reasons of biological silver nanoparticleproduction. When dead biomass of P. kessleri was used for silver removal, majority of s...

Heavy metal pollution caused by anthropogenic activity is a great concern of the present days. Widespread use of substances containingmetals inevitably lead to their deposition in soil affecting soil microbiota, which plays important role in maintaining soilfunctions. The aim of our study was to determine number of heavy metal resistant isolates ac...

Neutral mine drainage is the less frequent subject of the interest than acid mine drainage but it can have adverse environmental eff ects caused mainly by precipitation of dissolved Fe. Th e aim of the study was to characterize the composition of bacterial population in environment with high concentration of iron and sulfur compounds represented by...

The spread of antibiotic resistant strains is not limited to the clinical environment, but the emergence of resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes in the environment has now become one of the environmental pollution factors. As a model organism for the study of the spread of antibiotic resistance genes, which are a part of digestive tra...

Microorganisms actively participate in biogeochemical cycles of various elements in the environment, including gold. To explore the core microbiota associated with gold ore, this study examined the bacterial composition of mined rock from the Rozália gold mine (two subsurface samples from the gold mine and one from the heap of mined ore) using a cu...

The environment contaminated by antibiotics and heavy metals as a consequence of human activities is of great concern nowadays.Many pieces of research proved that the environment could act as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance determinants allowing themto spread among different bacterial species via the process called horizontal gene transfer. Th...

The treatment of cancer depends on the activity of the cytochrome P450 enzyme family, which is essentially carried out by the CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 enzymes. The aim of our study was to investigate whether the CYP3A4 polymorphism could contribute to protein activity and their influence to the response of cancer cells to treatment. The variability of CYP...

The Rozália Mine, with its long mining history, could represent an environmental threat connected with metal contamination and associated antibiotic tolerance. Metal and antibiotic tolerance profiles of heterotrophic, cultivable bacteria isolated from the Rozália Gold Mine in Hodruša-Hámre, Slovakia, and the surrounding area were analysed. Subsurfa...

Biogeochemical cycling of gold involves dispersion and reconcentration of gold (Au) due to physical, chemical and biological processesin Earth surface environments. These processes are evocated by a metabolic activity of different microbial taxa but many of them (andalso their biogeochemical potential) are still unexplored. Understanding the gold c...

A total of 297 individuals of indoor Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758 were trapped in two villages (Duplín and Potoky) in north-eastern Slovakia during 2015–2017 from small private farmstead buildings, i.e. in breeding yards with poultry, pigs and pigeons. Analysis of the demographic structure of the mouse populations showed that the sex ratio did not d...

Three different biological systems, the consortium of autotrophic bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, heterotrophic fungus Aspergillus niger and heterotrophic yeast Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, were investigated for lithium extraction from lepidolite. The bacterial consortium was the most effective, 11 mg l−1 of...

The bacteriome of bat faeces and bat guano is still not well known, despite the increasing knowledge of it as a potential source of pathogenic and/or antibiotic-resistant species. In this study, the faecal microbiome composition of two building-dwelling insectivorous bat species (Myotis myotis and Rhinolophus hipposideros) was analysed using cultiv...

Ganoderma resinaceum Boud. is commonly found in Mediterranean region, but rarely in Western, Central or Eastern Europe. It is a parasitic basidiomycetous fungus causing stem decay—especially in urban trees. A collection of nine fungal specimens from Slovakia (Central Europe), morphologically identified as G. resinaceum, was recently studied on the...

The article "The Bacterial Population of Neutral Mine Drainage Water of Elizabeth's Shaft (Slovinky, Slovakia)", written by Jana Kisková, Zuzana Perháèová, Ladislav Vlèko, Jana Sedláková, Simona Kvasnová and Peter Pristaš, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal on 12 March 2018 without open access. With the autho...

Fraxinus excelsior is currently suffering from ash dieback disease caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. Co-occurrence of large numbers of other fungi with endophytic as well as pathogenic lifestyles has been observed on F. excelsior. In this study, new endophytic Fusarium spp. isolate Fraxinus excelsior Fusarium from Slovak territory, asso...

The abomasal parasitic nematode Haemonchus contortus can influence the abomasal microbiome of the host. On the other hand, no information occurs on the influence of the parasite on the hindgut microbiome of the host. We evaluated the impact of Haemonchus contortus on the fecal microbial community of the experimentally infected lambs treated with a...

During systematic surveys of urban, rural and forest areas in Slovakia and Moravia (Czech Republic) and occasional botanical excursions in Northern Hungary, seventy-five collections of Ganoderma spp. were gathered during 2015 – 2018. Taxa identification was accomplished through observation of morphological characteristics of their mature, sporulati...

Our study included a total of 36 Fomes fomentarius specimens obtained from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic. After multiple sequence alignment analysis we observed that samples collected in Southern Europe belong to the lineage B with the exception of one specimen from northern Greece.

Sulphur-oxidising autotrophic bacterial communities in deep biosphere from weathered ore samples from active gold mine Hodruša-Hámre, Slovakia were analysed using cultivation approach followed by DNA extraction, PCR amplification and 16S rRNA gene analyses. Indirect measurement of pH changes in cultivation media evidenced the presence of acidophili...

Turtoises are a great puzzle when it comes to their bacterial flora, the composition and structure of which are still unknown in details. Its component which has been best described so far is Salmonella spp., presumably due to the threat of reptile-associated salmonellosis in humans. This investigation tried to assess and characterize intestinal ba...

Zinc biosorption and bioaccumulation by a novel extremely Zn tolerant Streptomyces K11 strain isolated from highly alkaline environment were examined. Temperature, similarly as biosorbent preparation, has negligible effect on the biosorption capacity but very strong effect on the process kinetics. Initial adsorption rate increased almost 10 times w...

During 2004-2011, we collected green lizards and Ixodes ricinus ticks in Slovak Karst National Park in Slovakia; 90% (36/40) of lizards and 37% of ticks removed from lizards were infected with family Anaplasmataceae bacteria. Only Candidatus Cryptoplasma sp. REP (reptile) was identified in these samples. Green lizards transmit this bacterium.

The genus Acidithiobacillus comprises 7 species of Gram-negative obligatory acidophilic chemolithotrophic bacteria that derive energy mainly from the oxidation of reduced sulphur compounds. Four of the species also catalyse the dissimilatory oxidation of ferrous iron while three (A. thiooxidans, A. albertensis, and A. caldus) do not. Bacteria from...

Heavy metal pollution is of great concern. Due to expansion of industrial activities, a large amount of metal is released into the environment, disturbing its fragile balance. Conventional methods of remediation of heavy metal-polluted soil and water are expensive and inefficient. Therefore, new techniques are needed to provide environmentally frie...

Ganoderma species are wood-decay polypores with double-walled basidiospores. Light microscopic analysis of basidiospores (structure, shape, size) was performed from 32 basidiocarps (6 species) obtained by own field research. Ganoderma applanatum has the smallest basidiospores with a fine ornamentation – the twin G. adspersum has longer, wider and d...

Representatives of the genus Ganoderma (Basidiomycota, Polyporales) are wood-decaying fungi causing white rot of a wide range of woody plants. The aim of this study was to find out the distribution of all European species of the genus Ganoderma in Slovakia and their binding to the native and introduced woody plants. A total 236 records of Ganoderma...

New genetic data with biotechnological potential (citrate metabolism, proteases, bacteriocin production) provides the genome sequence of the lactic acid producing bacterium of Enterococcus faecium strain 8S3, isolated from traditional Slovak cheese - bryndza produced from unpasteurised ewe milk. The genome sequence consists of 2.8 Mbp, with a mean...

Some strains of the genus Enterococcus are effective probiotic bacteria if they meet safety and probiotic criteria. In our study, 17 canine enterococci previously selected from a group of 160 isolates based on safety criteria were screened for some functional properties relevant to their use as probiotics. The results of antimicrobial resistance te...

Although neutral mine drainage is the less frequent subject of the interest than acid mine drainage, it can have adverse environmental effects caused mainly by precipitation of dissolved Fe. The aim of the study was to characterize the composition of bacterial population in environment with high concentration of iron and sulfur compounds represente...

Brown mud, as a waste product of the industrial process of aluminum production, represents a great environmental burden due to its toxicity to living organisms. However, some microorganisms are able to survive in this habitat, and they can be used in bioremediation processes. Traditional cultivation methods have a limited capacity to characterize b...

This is the first report of Sordaria fimicola-like ascomycete which was encountered during a diversity study of injured tissues of coulter pine in Slovakia. The fungus was identified as Sordaria fimicola by morphological analyses. Sequence analysis of internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) showed that the fungus is highly related to the ITS seque...

The original version of this article has been corrected to reflect the proper rendering of Fig. 1 after it was reported by the author that Fig. 1 was not loaded properly and did not show all of the necessary information. The original article has been corrected.

Currently there are limited data available on the occurrence of restriction-modification systems (RMS) in the enterococci from ewe milk and their role in protection against phage infection during the fermentation process. In our study sixty-one bacterial strains from ewe milk identified as Enterococcus spp. using MALDI-TOF analysis of protein finge...

Hemp is suitable for wide range of industrial uses; however, it has some limitations due to its water absorption potential. In this study we analyzed saprobic fungi in hemp hurds samples after 7 days water exposition. These fungal representatives could be responsible for destroying the fiber structure of industrial hemp materials in the environment...

Little is known about the effects of the high dose and types of manganese supplements on rumen environment at manganese intake level close above the limit of 150 mg/kg of dry feed matter. The effects of high dose of two manganese supplements (organic and inorganic) on rumen microbial ecosystem after four months of treatment of 18 lambs divided into...

The image of rumen content with the pellicles of dead rumen protozoa. The red arrows point to the pellicles of dead rumen ciliates of un lamb of the OMn group (scale bars indicate 10 μm). (TIF)

The wood-destroying fungi traditionally were separated from one another primarily on a basis of their sporocarp and/or strain morphology. Their diversity and simple macro- and micromorphology of fungal structures have been major obstacles for more rapid progress in this regard. However, over the past two decades, there has been substantial progress...

is an important biological control agent against various plant pathogenic fungi. We collected – necrotic ponderosa and Coulter pine needles and obtained

Migratory birds could be important vectors of pathogenic bacteria and antimicrobial resistance transmissions over long distances. The common crane (Grus grus) is one of the largest migratory birds in Europe which form numerous flocks during migration. The aim of the study was to analyse enteromicroflora of common crane and to analyse the occurrence...

Hibernation is an extraordinary phenomenon evolved in many animals including some mammals, allowing them to survive unfavorable environmental conditions. This period represents a phase of fasting, which is known to affect the gut microflora in non-hibernating mammals. Since during hibernation the physiological parameters (e.g., body temperature) di...

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was used for the discrimination among wood decay fungal species of the genera Fomitopsis, Rhodofomes, Fomes and Ganoderma (Polyporaceae, Basidiomycota). For all taxa studied, distance levels as high as 400 were observed and intraspecies variability and repro...

Actinomyces glycerinitolerans strain G10 T , which was isolated from sheep rumen fluid, can metabolize a range of substrates, including complex carbohydrates to organic acids (OAs). Here, we report a 3.69-Mbp draft genome of Actinomyces glycerinitolerans .

Multiple metallotolerant bacterial strains were isolated from soil and drainage water samples collected from three industrially heavy metals polluted areas in Slovakia. Obtained bacterial isolates were identified using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and bacterial isolates that belonged to the Acinetobacter genus were subjected for the further study. A...

Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental issues of today. Bioremediation by microorganisms is one of technologies extensively used for pollution treatment. In this study, we investigated the heavy metal resistance and zinc bioaccumulation by microbial consortium isolated from nickel sludge disposal site near Sereď (Slovakia)...

The traditional identification of the species of the genus Ganoderma (Basidiomycota phylum, Polyporales order) is based on its anatomical and morphological characteristics of basidiocarps. In recent years, molecular methods based on the analysis of the DNA are widely used. In this study, ability of newly applied method MALDI-TOF MS and known ITS-PC...

Lactic acid bacteria are symbiotic bacteria that naturally reside in the gastrointestinal tract of honey bees. They serve a multitude of functions and are considered beneficial and completely harmless. In our experiments Lactobacillus plantarum strain B35, isolated from honey bee digestive tract, was modified using pAD43-25 plasmid carrying a funct...

The refugial history and postglacial re-colonization routes of Western Carpathian insects are insufficiently understood. Therefore, we investigated the spatio-genetic structure (phylogeography) of Western Carpathian populations of Erebia euryale (Esper, 1805) (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) and inferred their colonization routes over the postglacial per...

Currently two morphological species of the genus Fomes (Polyporaceae, Basidiomycota) are known: F. fomentarius (L.) Fr. and F. fasciatus (Sw.) Cooke. Both species are very important in the decomposition of wood and in the nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. Moreover, F. fomentariusis also known as a source of medicinal and nutraceutical products...

The study evaluated the rumen fermentation pattern, microbial population, fatty acid composition, and antioxidant status in the rumen fluid and blood of sheep in response to a diet supplemented with herbal blend (HB), sunflower seeds (SS), and a combination of both HB and SS (HBSS). The HB consisted of medicinal herbs typical for Central Europe. Fo...

Bacteria Streptomyces strain K11 was isolated from highly alkaline aluminium brown mud samples. The obtained isolate was identified on the basis as of 16S rRNA gene sequence and it is probably a representative of a new streptomycete species related to the S. wuyuanensis and S. variabilis. High level of heavy metal resistance was reported for isolat...

During 2014-2015, samples from ten 20-25 years old pine (Pinus ponderosa var. jeffreyi) trees showing wilt symptoms were collected from the Arboretum Mlynany park. A disease was observed on 20% of the trees. The first symptoms are wilting, stunting, chlorosis, and discolouration of needles, which turned yellow on affected twigs, then red and finall...

Two bacterial strains, Am4 and G10 were isolated from rumen fluid of different ruminants: cow (Holstein-Friesian) and sheep (Slovenskè merino), respectively. They were isolated from different hosts and regions, but showed 99.2% similarity of the16S rRNA genes. Both strains are versatile and ferment various sugars to mainly succinate and lactate and...

Genetic variability of 17 wild strains of γ-proteobacteria isolated from different host plants, locations and seasons, identified via routine diagnostics as Erwinia amylovora, was analysed. The ERIC-PCR confirmed the genetic homogeneity among 15 virulent strains while 2 avirulent strains were genetically distinct. These two avirulent strains differ...

A new pathogen, Sordaria macrospora, isolated from damaged needles of black pine (Pinus nigra) causes discolouration, brown spots, blight symptoms, and necroses spoiling aesthetic value. Two species, C. ligniaria and C. malacotricha, the most common anamorphs attributed to Coniochaeta species occurring on selected conifers, and a new pathogen, Sord...

Lekárnické listy 05/2016 ISSN 1335-5821

Drevorozkladajúce trúdniky z rodu Ganoderma patria k významným pôvodcom hnilôb dreva živých drevín. Z územia Slovenska sú známe druhy: Ganoderma lipsiense (Batsch) G. F. Atk., Ganoderma australe (Fr.) Pat., Ganoderma carnosum Pat., Ganoderma pfeifferi Bres., Ganoderma lucidum (Curtis) P. Karst., Ganoderma resinaceum Boud., a Ganoderma valesiacum Bo...

The tinder polypore, Fomes fomentarius, is a wood-decaying macrofungus well known for its potential use in a wide range of biotechnological applications. The existence of 3 distinct internal transcribed spacer lineages/ sublineages among its strains has been clearly established. Sublineage A1 consists of strains isolated from North America, whereas...

The Snow vole has a fragmented distribution restricted to the mountain and rocky regions from the southwestern Europe to the Caucasus and the Middle East. Several subspecies have been described on the basis of dental characters. In this study we provide more detail insight into phylogenetic status of the Snow vole Chionomys nivalis occurring in the...