Sérgio R. Filipe

Interesses Científicos

The macromolecule of peptidoglycan (or its small components) can induce an inflammatory response in different hosts. We believe that in order to understand how this macromolecule is sensed by the infected host we will need to learn how this molecule is synthesised, organised, modified and degraded during the bacterial cell cycle. There are four essential questions that represent the different research lines being followed in our laboratory: 1. Does the composition of the peptidoglycan interfere with its recognition by the host? 2. Does the metabolism of the peptidoglycan, as the bacteria divides into two daughter cells, interfere with its recognition by the host? 3. Are polysaccharides, linked to the bacterial surface, capable of interfering with peptidoglycan recognition? 4. Are there other bacterial strategies to hide the inflammatory peptidoglycan macromolecule? We often use Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, Gram-positive bacterial pathogens, as model organisms to study how the metabolism of the bacteria cell surface, mainly cell wall synthesis and turnover, can modulate a response of the innate immune system of the infected host.

Publicações Representativas

2023

Veiga, H., Jousselin, A., Schaper, S., Saraiva, B. M., Marques, L. B., Reed, P., Wilton, J. , Pereira, P. M., Filipe, S. R., and M. G. Pinho. 2023.
Cell division protein FtsK coordinates bacterial chromosome segregation and daughter cell separation in Staphylococcus aureus.
EMBO J. In press. PMID: 37038972.

 

2022

Figueiredo, J., Henriques, M. X., Catalão, M. J, Pinheiro, S., Narciso, A. R., Mesquita, F., Saraiva, B. M., Carido, M., Cabanes, D., Pinho, M. G., and S. R. Filipe*. 2022.
Encapsulation of the septal cell wall protects Streptococcus pneumoniae from its major peptidoglycan hydrolase and host defenses.
PLoS Pathogens 18: e1010516. PMID: 35731836.

 

2021

Saraiva, B. M., Krippahl, L., Filipe, S. R., Henriques R, and M. G. Pinho. 2021.
eHooke: a tool for automated image analysis of spherical bacteria based on cell cycle progression.
Biological Imaging. 1: e3. PMID: 35036921.

Gigante, A. M., Olivença F., Catalão, M. J., Moniz-Pereira J., Filipe, S. R., and M. Pimentel. 2021.
The mycobacteriophage Ms6 LysB N-terminus displays peptidoglycan affinity.
Viruses. 13: 1337. PMID: 34372584.

Aggarwal, S. D. Lloyd, A. J.*, Yerneni, S. S., Narciso, A. R., Shepherd, J., Roper, D. I., Dowson, C., Filipe, S. R.*, and N. L. Hiller*. 2021.
A molecular link between cell wall biosynthesis, translation fidelity, and stringent response in Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 118: e2018089118. PMID: 33785594.

 

2020

Queda, F., Covas, G., Filipe, S. R.*, and M. Manuel B. Marques*. 2020.
Assembly of peptidoglycan fragments - a synthetic challenge.
Pharmaceuticals. 13: 392. PMID: 33203094.

 

2019

Queda, F., Covas, G., Silva, T., Santos, C. A., Bronze, M. R., Canada, F. J., Corvo, M. C., Filipe, S. R.*, and M. Manuel B. Marques*. 2019.
A top-down chemo-enzymatic approach towards N-acetylglucosamine-N-acetylmuramic oligosaccharides: chitosan as a reliable template.
Carbohydrate Polymers. 224: 115133.

Szymczak, P. , Rau, M. H., Monteiro, J. M., Pinho, M. G., Filipe, S. R., Vogensen, F. K., Zeidan, A. A., and T. Janzen. 2019.
A comparative genomics approach for identifying host-range determinants in Streptococcus thermophilus bacteriophages.
Scientific Reports. 9: 7991. PMID: 31142793.

Vaz, F., Kounatidis, I., Covas, G., Parton, R. M., Harkiolaki, M., Davis, I., Filipe, S. R.*, and P. Ligoxygakis*. 2019.
Accessibility to peptidoglycan is important for the recognition of Gram-positive bacteria in Drosophila.
Cell Reports. 27: 2480-2492. PMID: 31116990.

Monteiro, J. M., Covas, G., Rausch, D., Filipe, S. R., Schneider, T., Sahl, H.G, and M. G. Pinho. 2019.
The pentaglycine bridges of Staphylococcus aureus peptidoglycan are essential for cell integrity.
Scientific Reports. 9: 5010. PMID: 30899062.

Catalão, M. J., Filipe, S. R. and M. Pimentel. 2019.
Revisiting anti-tuberculosis therapeutic strategies that target the peptidoglycan structure and synthesis.
Front. Microbiol. 10:190. PMID: 30804921.

 

2018

Carvalho, L. C. R., Queda, F., Almeida, C. V., Filipe, S. R. and M. Manuel B. Marques.  2018.
From a natural polymer to relevant NAG-NAM precursors.
Asian J Org Chem. 7: 2544-2551.

Szymczak, P., Filipe, S. R., Covas, G., Vogensen, F. K., Neves, A. R., and T. Janzen. 2018.
Cell wall glycans mediate recognition of the dairy bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus by bacteriophages.
Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 84: e01847-18. PMID: 30242010.

Monteiro, J. M., Pereira, A. R., Reichmann, N. T., Saraiva, B. M., Fernandes, P. B., Veiga , H., Tavares, A. C., Santos, M., Ferreira, M. T., Macário, V., VanNieuwenhze, M. S., Filipe S. R. and M. G.Pinho. 2018.
Peptidoglycan synthesis drives an FtsZ-treadmilling-independent step of cytokinesis.
Nature. 554: 528-532. PMID: 29443967.

 

2017

Dajkovic, A., Tesson, B., Chauhan, S., Courtin, P., Keary, R., Flores, P., Marlière, C., Filipe, S. R., Chapot-Chartier, M. P. and R. Carballido-Lopez. 2017.
Hydrolysis of peptidoglycan is modulated by amidation of meso-diaminopimelic acid and Mg2+ in Bacillus subtilis.
Mol. Microbiol. 104: 972-988. PMID: 28317238.

 

2016

Gravato-Nobre, M. J., Vaz, F., Filipe, S., Chalmers, R. and J. Hodgkin. 2016.
The invertebrate lysozyme effector ILYS-3 is systemically activated in response to danger signals and confers antimicrobial protection in C. elegans.
PLoS Pathogens 12: e1005826. PMID: 27525822.

Covas, G., Vaz, F., Henriques, G., Pinho, M. G. and S. R. Filipe. 2016.
Analysis of cell wall teichoic acids in Staphylococcus aureus.
Methods Mol. Biol. 1440: 201-213. PMID: 27311674.

 

2015

Monteiro, J. M., Fernandes, P. B., Vaz, F., Pereira, A. R., Tavares, A. C., Ferreira, M. T., Pereira, P. M., Veiga, H., Kuru, E., VanNieuwenhze, M., Brun, Y. V., Filipe, S. R., and M. G. Pinho. 2015.
Cell shape dynamics during the staphylococci cell cycle.
Nat. Commun. 6: 8055. PMID: 26278781.

Greene, N. G, Narciso, A. R., Filipe, S. R., and A. Camilli. 2015.
Peptidoglycan branched stem peptides contribute to Streptococcus pneumoniae virulence by inhibiting pneumolysin release.
PLoS Pathogens. 11: e1004996. PMID: 26114646.

Carvalho, F., Atilano, M. L., Pombinho, R., Covas, G., Gallo, R. L., Filipe, S. R., Sousa, S. and D. Cabanes. 2015.
L-Rhamnosylation of Listeria monocytogenes wall teichoic acids promotes resistance to antimicrobial peptides by delaying interaction with the membrane.
PLoS Pathogens. 11: e1004919. PMID: 26001194.

Reed, P., Atilano, M. L., Alves, R., Hoiczyk, E., Sher, X., Reichmann, N. T., Pereira, P. M., Roemer, T., Filipe, S. R., Pereira-Leal, J. B., Ligoxygakis, P., and M. G. Pinho. 2015.
Staphylococcus aureus survives with a minimal peptidoglycan synthesis machinery but sacrifices virulence and antibiotic resistance.
PLoS Pathogens. 11: e1004891. PMID: 25951442.

 

2014

Catalão, M. J., Figueiredo, J., Henriques, M. X., Gomes, J. P. and S. R. Filipe. 2014.
Optimization of fluorescent tools for cell biology studies in Gram-positive bacteria.
PLoS One, 9: e113796. PMID: 25464377.

Atilano, M. L., Pereira, P. M., Vaz, F., Catalão, M. J., Reed, P., Grilo, I. R., Sobral, R. G., Ligoxygakis, P., Pinho, M. G., and S. R. Filipe. 2014.
Bacterial autolysins trim cell surface peptidoglycan to prevent detection by the Drosophila innate immune system.
eLife. 3: e02277. PMID: 24692449.

Rueff A.-S., Chastanet, A., Dominguez-Escobar, J., Yao, Z., Yates, J., Prejean, M.-V., Delumeau, O., Noirot, P., Wedlich-Soldner, R., Filipe, S. R., and Carballido-Lopez, R. 2014.
An early cytoplasmic step of peptidoglycan synthesis is associated to MreB in Bacillus subtilis.
Mol. Microbiol. 91: 348-362. PMID: 24261876.

 

2013

Thorsing, M., Klitgaard, J. K., Atilano, M. L., Skov, M. N., Kolmos, H. J., Filipe, S. R., and Kallipolitis, B. H. 2013.
Thioridazine induces major changes in global gene expression and cell wall composition in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA300.
PLoS One. 8: e64518. PMID: 23691239.

Henriques, M. X., Catalão, M. J., Figueiredo, J., Gomes, J. P., and S. R. Filipe. 2013.
Construction of improved tools for protein localization studies in Streptococcus pneumoniae.
PLoS One. 8: e55049. PMID: 23349996

 

2011

Atilano, M. L., Yates, J., Glittenberg, M., Filipe*, S. R., and P. Ligoxygakis*. 2011.
Wall teichoic acids of Staphylococcus aureus limit recognition by the Drosophila Peptidoglycan Recognition Protein-SA to promote pathogenicity. *Co-Last and corresponding authors.
PLoS Pathogens. 7: e1002421. PMID: 22144903.

Henriques, M. X., Rodrigues, T., Carido, M., Ferreira, L., and S. R. Filipe. 2011.
Synthesis of capsular polysaccharide at the division septum of Streptococcus pneumoniae is dependent on a bacterial tyrosine kinase.
Mol. Microbiol. 82: 515-534. PMID: 21929561.

 

2010

Atilano, M. L., Pereira P. M., Yates, J., Reed, P., Veiga, H., Pinho*, M. G., and S. R. Filipe*. 2010.
Teichoic acids are temporal and spatial regulators of peptidoglycan cross-linking in Staphylococcus aureus. *Co-Last and corresponding authors.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 107: 18991-18996. PMID: 20944066.