Biology subjects

Oberhaensli, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Oberhaensli, S..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Persistent maternal memory, transient offspring effects: the temporal and sex-specific architecture of heritable heat-stress responses in zebrafish

Environmental experiences can influence subsequent generations, yet little is known about the dynamics of such molecular memories across time, reproduction events, and offspring development. Here we provide a temporal map of the transmission of environmental information through egg provisioning and its phenotypic consequences in zebrafish. Specifically, we follow the effects of a 2-week heat wave across successive matings and two unexposed generations along a complete adult-to-egg-to-adult experimental trajectory, assessing gonad responses, maternal RNA, embryo survival, larval behaviour, adult stress resistance and liver transcriptomes. We find that oocyte maternal RNA retained a pronounced heat-shock signature across several weeks and multiple spawning events, with selected functional components persisting into oocytes of the next generation. Somatic responses followed a fundamentally different trajectory: effects on liver transcription were sex- and timepoint-specific, with minor intergenerational signatures of energy metabolism and metabolic stress in males. Parental heat exposure also altered offspring survival, larval behaviour and thermal tolerance, with progressively weakened effects across successive reproductive events and across generations. Our results reveal distinct temporal dynamics of environmental memory in the germline vs the developing and adult soma, with persistent molecular information in maternal provisioning coexisting with progressively fading offspring phenotypes. Such selective retention and loss of parental information align with theoretical predictions about the progressively declining value of inherited information and may determine the dynamics of cross-generational population-level responses to extreme events.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Variation of anti-oomycete activity in Pseudomonas spp.: phenotypic characterization and comparative genomics

Pathogenic aquatic oomycetes Aphanomyces astaci and Saprolegnia parasitica represent a major threat to biodiversity and aquaculture production, but their interactions with host-associated microbes remain poorly understood. From a collection of bacterial isolates (n = 328) obtained from fish and crayfish hosts, we focused on Pseudomonas spp. (n = 66) and confirmed their previously reported strong inhibitory potential against A. astaci and S. parasitica. However, our results also revealed substantial inter- and intra-species variation in antagonism. To capture this variation, we selected eight isolates belonging to different P. fluorescens, P. putida, and P. syringae species groups and displaying contrasting levels of anti-oomycete activity for further phenotypic assays and comparative genomic analysis. Across these isolates, mycelial inhibition was markedly stronger against A. astaci than against S. parasitica, indicating species-specific differences in susceptibility. Comparative genomic analysis revealed substantial variation in biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) repertoires among the analysed strains. Strongly inhibitory isolates carried candidate BGCs with similarity to characterised bioactive pathways, including pyoluteorin, rhizoxin, pyrrolnitrin, DAPG, and orfamide, alongside with multiple uncharacterised clusters that were either shared among inhibitory isolates or restricted to individual strains. All analysed genomes also contained clusters related to siderophore and HCN biosynthesis. However, in vitro assays showed that siderophore production was not clearly associated with inhibitory activity and that inhibition was mediated mainly by diffusible rather than volatile compounds. Altogether, our results suggest that Pseudomonas anti-oomycete activity is species- and strain-dependent and likely reflects different combinations of multiple, predominantly diffusible metabolites rather than a single conserved mechanism. In conclusion, this study provides a foundation for future work aimed at resolving mechanisms underlying microbial antagonism toward aquatic oomycete pathogens.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2025

Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals influences of rearing environment on cellular immunity in brown trout (Salmo trutta)

Vertebrate immune systems exhibit striking evolutionary diversity, yet our understanding remains biased toward mammalian models. Here, we generate a single-cell atlas of immune cells from the ecologically and economically important salmonid Salmo trutta (brown trout), a lineage characterized by an ancestral whole-genome duplication (WGD). Profiling over 83,000 kidney-derived immune cells, we resolved 34 transcriptionally distinct populations, identified core immune lineages, and uncovered novel markers in neutrophils, macrophages, T- and B-cells. We detected pervasive transcriptional divergence between WGD-derived ohnologue pairs, indicating putative sub- and neofunctionalization in immune gene regulation. We further show that the transcriptional identity of immune cells is shaped by rearing history: fish raised in hatcheries--whether for one or multiple generations--showed shifts in immune gene expression across cell types. These included genes involved in G protein-coupled receptor signalling, a process which has previously been implicated in domestication. Our findings provide insight into the evolution of vertebrate immunity and raise concerns about the immunological fitness of hatchery-reared fish released into the wild.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2025

Dendritic-cell diversity in equine blood revealed by single-cell transcriptomics

Unbiased classification of equine dendritic cells (DC) is necessary to address various research questions such as the role of DC subsets in immune-mediated diseases of horses. We applied single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on DC enriched from the blood of two horses. All main DC subsets were detected by key gene expression, including conventional DC type 1 (cDC1; XCR1) and type 2 (cDC2; FCER1A, CD1E) as well as plasmacytoid DC (pDC; TCF4). In addition, we detected a small cluster of hematopoietic progenitors, as well as transitional DC (tDC; FCER1A, TCF4) and putative DC type 3 (DC3; FLT3, CD163). Our data confirms the previously reported phenotype of equine pDC (Flt3+MHC-IIlowCADM1lowCD172aint), cDC1 (Flt3+MHC-IIhighCADM1highCD172alow-int) and cDC2 (Flt3+MHC-IIhighCADM1intCD172ahigh), while also highlighting considerable CD14 expression for cDC2. Two subclusters of equine cDC2 were found to be enriched in FCER1A or CX3CR1 transcripts (cDC2.1 and cDC2.2, respectively), with suggested enhanced extravasation and T-cell stimulatory capacities of the latter. Conservation of DC subsets across species (horse, pig, human, mouse) was illustrated by enrichment analyses with subset-specific gene signatures and by cross-species data integration with publicly available scRNA-seq datasets. Our atlas of equine blood DC is a valuable resource for comparative analyses, and it forms the foundation for understanding the involvement of distinct DC subsets in infections and immune-mediated pathologies. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=93 SRC="FIGDIR/small/644174v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (18K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@bdce22org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1285715org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@16d37c8org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1695121_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

immunology↗