Ivan Krešimir Svetec | University of Zagreb (original) (raw)

Papers by Ivan Krešimir Svetec

Journal of Biotechnology, 2017

EMBO Young Scientist Forum, 2009

50 Years of Molecular Biology in Croatia, 2008

Periodicum Biologorum

This study is an attempt to evaluate the pathway and the achievements of yeast genetics in Croati... more This study is an attempt to evaluate the pathway and the achievements of yeast genetics in Croatia. The study represents both, an authors’ review and a historical overview and therefore is of value for yeast geneticists aswell as for historians of science.

We studied the influence of short terminal heterology on plasmid integration in the genome of the... more We studied the influence of short terminal heterology on plasmid integration in the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast cells were transformed with nonreplicative plasmid linearized within the CYC1 region containing short (104 bp) heterologous insertion. Different restriction enzymes were used to introduce double-strand break (DSB) or deletion within the heterology, or just in the junction between the CYC1 gene and insertion. The presence of heterology at both ends of the linearized plasmid resulted in 20-fold decrease in the efficiency of transformation while the presence of one heterologous end caused only two to four-fold decrease. We used plasmids with identical or different heterologous ends and they gave basically the same results. Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA was used to further characterise the nature of transformation events. 97/100 transformants were produced by plasmid integration in the yeast CYC1 region and only three by illegitimate integration...

Journal of Fungi

Non-conventional yeasts are increasingly being investigated and used as producers in biotechnolog... more Non-conventional yeasts are increasingly being investigated and used as producers in biotechnological processes which often offer advantages in comparison to traditional and well-established systems. Most biotechnologically interesting non-conventional yeasts belong to the Saccharomycotina subphylum, including those already in use (Pichia pastoris, Yarrowia lypolitica, etc.), as well as those that are promising but as yet insufficiently characterized. Moreover, for many of these yeasts the basic tools of genetic engineering needed for strain construction, including a procedure for efficient genetic transformation, heterologous protein expression and precise genetic modification, are lacking. The first aim of this study was to construct a set of integrative and replicative plasmids which can be used in various yeasts across the Saccharomycotina subphylum. Additionally, we demonstrate here that the electroporation procedure we developed earlier for transformation of B. bruxellensis ca...

Journal of Biotechnology, 2016

Glioblastoma are highly malignant brain tumours and they express intermediate-conductance calcium... more Glioblastoma are highly malignant brain tumours and they express intermediate-conductance calcium-activated potassium (KCa3.1) channels and swelling-activated chloride (Clsw) channels, both deeply involved in glioblastoma cell migration/invasion. An emerging area of ion channels research in oncology is their involvement

Journal of Medical Microbiology, 2011

In recent years, an evident rise in the frequency of candidaemia caused by non-albicans Candida s... more In recent years, an evident rise in the frequency of candidaemia caused by non-albicans Candida species has been reported. In this paper we present three cases of clinically manifested candidaemia caused by Candida utilis in neonatal patients hospitalized in the same neonatal intensive care unit within a 6 month period. To the authors' knowledge, only two cases of C. utilis candidaemia have been reported in the literature to date, but neither of these involved newborns. Clinical resolution and elimination of C. utilis from the blood were achieved using liposomal amphotericin B or caspofungin in all patients. Abbreviations: CRP, C-reactive protein; CVC, central venous catheter; NICU, neonatal intensive care unit; RAPD, random amplification of polymorphic DNA.

Metode u molekularnoj bilogiji, 2007

4th Congress of Croatian Geneticists with International Participation Book of Abstracts, 2018

10th Central European Genome Stability and Dynamics Meeting, 2019

6th Conference on Physiology of Yeasts and Filamentous Fungi, 2016

In contrast to the vertical inheritance of genetic traits, from parents to their offspring, the a... more In contrast to the vertical inheritance of genetic traits, from parents to their offspring, the acquisition of genetic material from neighbors may involve members of different species. The incoming genetic material has first to find a way to enter the recipient cell and then to become established there. Two examples of such horisontal gene transfer acquired much attention due to their great practical importance: plasmid shuttling between bacterial species and unidirectional transfer of genetic information from the procaryote Agrobacterium tumefaciens to the plant cells where the single-stranded DNA from bacterial origin integrates in the plant genome by illegitimate recombination. The exogenous DNA, coming from another species, is expected to have no homology, or only limited homology to the host genome. How could such heterologous DNA integrate into the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, whose recombinational machinery is known to operate efficiently only with homologous...

SUMMARY Research background During the current SARS-CoV2 pandemic, as well as earlier SARS and ME... more SUMMARY Research background During the current SARS-CoV2 pandemic, as well as earlier SARS and MERS epidemics, it has been observed that COVID19-positive women on average tend to have milder symptoms and lower fatality rates than men. There is a number of differences between the sexes known to contribute to different immune responses and severity of the disease, one being the effect of estrogen via estrogen receptor signalling. We wondered if estrogen might also affect the SARS-CoV2 more directly, perhaps by binding to the surface glycoprotein (S protein), thus possibly reducing its infectivity. Experimental approach To assess whether there is a possibility for estrogen binding on the SARS-CoV2 S protein, we used BLAST and HHpred to compare protein sequences of S protein and human estrogen receptor β, while 3D structures of a potential estrogen binding site and an active site of estrogen receptor β were visualized and compared using PyMOL. Results and conclusions By comparing the se...

O kvascima, koji se koriste od davnina u tradicionalnoj proizvodnji vina, piva i pekarskih proizv... more O kvascima, koji se koriste od davnina u tradicionalnoj proizvodnji vina, piva i pekarskih proizvoda, napisan je u nas samo jedan sveucilisni udžbenik (Industrijska mikrobiologija, 1984). Udžbenik je zastario pa je prof. dr. sc. S. Grba sa skupinom suradnika napisao novi, koji pokriva veliki dio suvremene nastave na Prehrambeno-biotehnoloskom fakultetu u Zagrebu iz predmeta Biotehnologija 3. na preddiplomskom studiju i posebnih predmeta na preddiplomskom i diplomskom studiju (pivo, vino, alkohol i alkoholna pica, pekarski kvasac, primjena kvasceve biomase u prehrambenoj industriji, proizvodnja lijekova s pomocu kvasaca i dr.). Ovaj udžbenik mogu koristiti i studenti drugih fakulteta u Zagrebu (Agronomija, PMF, Farmacija i dr.) te studenti Prehrambeno-tehnoloskog fakulteta u Osijeku. Dobro ce doci i mnogim strucnjacima koji vec rade u biotehnoloskoj industriji.

DNA Repair, 2014

Gene targeting is extremely efficient in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is performed by t... more Gene targeting is extremely efficient in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is performed by transformation with a linear, non-replicative DNA fragment carrying a selectable marker and containing ends homologous to the particular locus in a genome. However, even in S. cerevisiae, transformation can result in unwanted (aberrant) integration events, the frequency and spectra of which are quite different for ends-out and ends-in transformation assays. It has been observed that gene replacement (ends-out gene targeting) can result in illegitimate integration, integration of the transforming DNA fragment next to the target sequence and duplication of a targeted chromosome. By contrast, plasmid integration (ends-in gene targeting) is often associated with multiple targeted integration events but illegitimate integration is extremely rare and a targeted chromosome duplication has not been reported. Here we systematically investigated the influence of design of the ends-out assay on the success of targeted genetic modification. We have determined transformation efficiency, fidelity of gene targeting and spectra of all aberrant events in several ends-out gene targeting assays designed to insert, delete or replace a particular sequence in the targeted region of the yeast genome. Furthermore, we have demonstrated for the first time that targeted chromosome duplications occur even during ends-in gene targeting. Most importantly, the whole chromosome duplication is POL32 dependent pointing to break-induced replication (BIR) as the underlying mechanism. Moreover, the occurrence of duplication of the targeted chromosome was strikingly increased in the exo1 sgs1 double mutant but not in the respective single mutants demonstrating that the Exo1 and Sgs1 proteins independently suppress whole chromosome duplication during gene targeting.

Journal of Dairy Research, 2009

The synbiotic effect of the oral treatment of Swiss albino mice with milk-based diets supplemente... more The synbiotic effect of the oral treatment of Swiss albino mice with milk-based diets supplemented with Lactobacillus helveticus M92 and various kinds of prebiotics was investigated. Survival, competition, adhesion and colonization, as well as, immunomodulating capability of Lb. helveticus M92, in synbiotic combination, in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of mice, were monitored. After the mice were fed with synbiotics, the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) counts in faeces were increased and reduction of enterobacteria and sulphite-reducing clostridia was observed. Similar results were obtained in homogenates of small and large intestine of mice on the 1st and 14th day, after feeding with synbiotics. After the mice were orally given viable Lb. helveticus M92 cells, alone or in combination with prebiotic, the concentration of faecal SIgA and total serum IgA antibodies from all immunized mice were higher compared with the control. The specific humoral immune response was not evoked after or...

Current Genetics, 2005

Palindromic sequences are important DNA motifs involved in the regulation of different cellular p... more Palindromic sequences are important DNA motifs involved in the regulation of different cellular processes, but are also a potential source of genetic instability. In order to initiate a systematic study of palindromes at the whole genome level, we developed a computer program that can identify, locate and count palindromes in a given sequence in a strictly defined way. All palindromes, defined as identical inverted repeats without spacer DNA, can be analyzed and sorted according to their size, frequency, GC content or alphabetically. This program was then used to prepare a catalog of all palindromes present in the chromosomal DNA of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. For each palindrome size, the observed palindrome counts were significantly different from those in the randomly generated equivalents of the yeast genome. However, while the short palindromes (2-12 bp) were under-represented, the palindromes longer than 12 bp were overrepresented, AT-rich and preferentially located in the intergenic regions. The 44-bp palindrome found between the genes CDC53 and LYS21 on chromosome IV was the longest palindrome identified and contained only two C-G base pairs. Avoidance of coding regions was also observed for palindromes of 4-12 bp, but was less pronounced. Dinucleotide analysis indicated a strong bias against palindromic dinucleotides that could explain the observed short palindrome avoidance. We discuss some possible mechanisms that may influence the evolutionary dynamics of palindromic sequences in the yeast genome.