Projects

Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic, sporulating, facultative pathogenic bacterium for humans as well as animals. The current antibiotic treatments appear to be less and less efficient. It is very important to look for possible alternative treatment methods. In this project, proteins (bacteriocins) will be identified that are able to inhibit Clostridium difficile but affect the normal microflora in a minimal way.

Clostridium botulinum is an anaerobic sporeforming bacterium that is notorious for producing a potent neurotoxin. Spores of C. botulinum can survive mild food processing treatments and subsequently germinate, multiply, produce toxin and cause botulism. Control of spore germination and outgrowth is therefore essential for the safety of mildly processed foods. However, little is known about the process of spore germination in group II C. ...

Innovations in the formulation, packaging, processing and preservation of minimally processed chilled foods require adequate measures to control psychrotrophic Clostridium botulinum (group II), the major pathogen of concern in these foods. However, this organism has received little attention by food researchers in the past two decades because of biosafety and biosecurity issues and because of the strict anaerobic culture conditions ...

The project aims to determine the surfactome and exoproteome of Clostridium perfringens in vitro after contact with chicken gut epithelial cells and at necrotic lesions in the gut of broiler chickens. Genes encoding proteins that are highly expressed under these conditions will be mutated and their role in the pathogenesis evaluated in in vivo.

Clostridium botulinum is a strictly anaerobic spore-forming bacterium, and produces the most deadly toxin known, the botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT). Therefore, food contaminated with (spores of) this pathogen constitutes an important threat to humans and animals. Bacterial spores are highly resistant dormant structures that are resilient against many hostile conditions like heat, dryness, lack of nutrients, UV, chemicals and oxygen. ...

Clostridium perfringens infections in piglets can lead to necrotic enteritis, of which it is believed that it is casued by the action of the beta toxin. Using in vivo experiments with wild type strains and beta toxin knock-out mutants the causative role of this toxin will be investigated and early interactions of the toxin with the mucosa will be analyzed.

The objective of the project is the development of in vitro detection methods for the different toxins (A, B, C, D, E and F) of Clostridium botulinum by optimizing both a competitive immuno-PCR test (icqPCR) and a quantitative immuno-PCR (iqPCR) and by comparing one to another with regard to the obtained specificity and sensitivity of detection for each type of botulinum toxin as well as to compare them to the reference method for detection ...

Microbial electrosynthesis is the process in which bacteria use electrical energy to convert CO2 into organic compounds. A promising bacterium for this process is Clostridium ljungdahlii. Electrosynthesis by this bacterium will be optimized by developing a strain with an increased biofilm production and an enhanced electron transfer, as well as by improving the operational conditions for reactors.

The secondary metabolites also known as natural products exhibit a variety of important bioactivities and excellent pharmaceutical properties (as antibiotics, anti-cancers and immune-suppressants) that have successfully been used in the pharmaceutical industry. The secondary metabolites are synthesized by non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) and polyketide synthase (PKS) mega-enzymes, which consist of multiple functional ...