Bacteria can adapt to various environmental factors such as temperature, pressure, ions, nutrients and toxic substances by modifying their membranes to maintain them in a fluid state. These modifications within the cytoplasmatic membrane particularly result from changes in the fatty acid composition and interaction between proteins and lipids. Fatty acids, mainly phospholipid fatty acids, play ...

Epistasis describes the phenomenon that mutations at different loci do not have independent effects with regard to certain phenotypes. Understanding the global epistatic landscape is vital for many genetic and evolutionary theories. Current knowledge for epistatic dynamics under multiple conditions is limited by the technological difficulties in experimentally screening epistatic relations amon...

Microorganisms often exhibit a history-dependent phenotypic response after exposure to a stimulus which can be imperative for proper function. However, cells frequently experience unexpected environmental perturbations that might induce phenotypic switching. How cells maintain phenotypic states in the face of environmental fluctuations remains an open question. Here, we use environmental pertur...

Progress in systems biology depends on accurate descriptions of biological networks. Connections in a regulatory network are identified as correlations of gene expression across a set of environmental or genetic perturbations. To use this information to predict system behavior, we must test how the nature of perturbations affects topologies of networks they reveal. To probe this question, we fo...

Temporal variability in ecosystems significantly impacts species diversity and ecosystem productivity and therefore the evolution of organisms. Different levels of environmental perturbations such as seasonal fluctuations, natural disasters, and global change have different impacts on organisms and therefore their ability to acclimatize and adapt. Thus, to understand how organisms evolve under ...

Objectives Drawing on new (2011-12) and previous (1993-5, 2000-1 and 2007-8) data on suicidal behaviour reported by the Belgian Network of Sentinel General Practices (SGP), we describe trends in the key characteristics of suicidal events. We also examine patient age-related trends in the on-site attendance of sentinel general practitioners (GPs) as first professional caregivers following suicid...

Genetical genomics is a useful approach for studying the effect of genetic perturbations on biological systems at the molecular level. However, molecular networks depend on the environmental conditions and, thus, a comprehensive understanding of biological systems requires studying them across multiple environments. We propose a generalization of genetical genomics, which combines genetic and s...