Pfliegler Lab at University of Debrecen

Last but not least, we also show that the KO probiotic yeast is a useful platform strain that can express e.g. an anti-Listerial bacteriocin, or hopefully, other therapeutic molecules for vulnerable patients in the future.

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Researchers Make Probiotic Safer for Immunocompromised Patients An international team of researchers has modified a probiotic yeast to make it safer for use by immunocompromised people, older adults and infants.

and also conducted WGS to check for off-target effects of the CRISPR knockout. Gut microbiota changes in 🐭 were also tracked. Everything lined up well and after a very useful peer review process at CommsBiol, it is finally out! Check out the NCSU press release here news.ncsu.edu/2026/03/rese...

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As results were promising, we teamed up with the Crook Lab at NCSU, where @alexandraimre.bsky.social is now a postdoc, showing KO yeast survival in the GI tract. Here at University of Debrecen, w/ PhD students Andi Harmath and @balintnemeth.bsky.social and collaborators we tested other features

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Osmotic stress tolerance was chosen as a target to diminish virulence in the probiotic, a problem that affects immunocompromised patients and other vulnerable groups. Two genes were knocked out in all 6 backgrounds and only decreased virulence in mice in a collab w/ @renatokovacs1.bsky.social

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www.nature.com/articles/s42...
It is so great to see this paper finally out! w/ @alexandraimre.bsky.social we started this project years ago. We checked what phenotypes of the probiotic #yeast are selected for in an experimental 🐭 bloodstream infection in 6 different S. 'boulardii' backgrounds

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We opened a Brazilian wild #yeast fermented red wine I brought back from Rio. Very nice, strong notes of chocolate and red fruit!

a headshot of David Botstein

We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of David Botstein, a towering figure in modern #genetics and a foundational force behind SGD.
www.yeastgenome.org/blog/in-memo... #yeast #modelOrganism

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... doi.org/10.64898/202... The link corrected, in two versions:)

Thank you for the correct link!

This research project was integrated into our General and Applied Microbiology course at the University of Debrecen, and students passing the course successfully became group authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... comparison of commercially available #Saccharomyces #mead yeasts.

Our new preprint w/ @balintnemeth.bsky.social and colleagues compares 13 mead #yeast strains for their phenotype, genome, and presents data on metabolites in experimental mead fermentations.

Yesterday at Rio Botanic Garden :)

I arrived to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro to André dos Santos' lab, meeting with students incl. @raquelvicente.bsky.social who visited us in Debrecen a year ago! Excited to give a course on #yeast genomics :) and present on our results in this enchanting city!

📢 In our new study, we identify the predominant natural route to polyploidy in S. cerevisiae.

Stepwise polyploidization operates through iterative cycles of events termed "Sporulate–Endoreplicate–Mate" (SEM).

Really excellent work led by @cintiagomez.bsky.social 👏

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

With a 2019 Fuller's vintage ale, celebrating the acceptance of a paper w/ @alexandraimre.bsky.social that we started working on in 2019. So happy to have saved this for all these years! What a long journey! The topic is #yeast probiotics, will be online very soon!

"Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres" #yeastevolution

With @litinice.bsky.social, we built a haploid resource from 33 wild Taiwanese Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains — including some of the most genetically divergent Asian lineages — to bring natural yeast diversity into a genetically tractable framework. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It actually causes stress in the cell wall, so a very little amount is deadly in most of the cases for yeast (I misspelled "wall" above). On this pic, the bottom 2 strains are OK in a dilution series. The top two only show growth in a spot where we inoculated 50k cells, save for one lonely colony.

Found this almost artistic bottle, probably close to 100 years old, at our Department! Still in great shape and the Congo Red is still vibrant red inside:) this substance is often used in cell will stress experiments with #yeast

#yeastevolution

We welcome @ola-gorzynska.bsky.social from Wroclaw Medical University in Debrecen! Ola will spend a month in our lab working on clinical #Saccharomyces yeast genomes. 54 Polish isolates' sequences just arrived, so the project starts w/ Andi Harmath and @balintnemeth.bsky.social ! Good luck, Ola!

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Major milestone unlocked for mycology! 🍄

We just published a massive genomic resource in 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚, releasing 2,695 complete circular mitochondrial species assembled from public data

This single dataset nearly 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐒 📈the known mitochondrial diversity of the Kingdom Fungi
rdcu.be/eYZ2h

New paper! Here we present the history, geographical distribution, and structure of organizations in #mycology across #Europe, as well as their activities—including journals, magazines, meetings, educational initiatives, and #citizenscience projects. doi.org/10.1007/s105... #FunDive

My first ever hairy tofu, 毛豆腐. Made with a Mucor species starter culture I ordered from Ebay. After 24 hours it was ready and I stir-fried it, the taste was cheese-like and pleasant!

Repeated losses of self-fertility shaped heterozygosity and polyploidy in #yeastevolution

Happy 40th birthday Yeast: Yeast: Vol 42, No 12 Yeast is a microbiology journal for research in the rapidly moving field of yeast biology. We publish the most significant developments in unicellular fungi.

The new year has just started and we are happy to share the news that the new issue of #Yeast (Volume 42, Number 12, December 2025) is finally out!!! 😀😀😀

This issue includes two research articles and two reviews.

You can browse it at this link:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10970061...

Here is our first publication of 2026 which is the first article of a special issue that mark the journal 40 anniversary - happy new year to all the #yeast community

Indeed! This is such a big surprise that the taxonomic type of A. flavus is really a weird isolate, from a weird substrate, strange location, and a surprising phylogenomic position! I wonder how this situation of oryzae/flavus can be resolved in metagenomic studies and in food safety regulations...

...came in 2021 but the manuscript was submitted only this September, in a collab with Ignazio Carbone at NCSU. So happy that this is out! By incorporating data from papers of @annemakerofhats.bsky.social, Mickey Drott, and dozens of others, we were able to analyze 639 Aspergillus Flavi genomes here

Global population genomics redefines domestication and clinical diversity in the Aspergillus flavus–oryzae complex Aspergillus flavus is a globally important human pathogen and agricultural contaminant, while its domesticated relative A. oryzae is widely used in food fermentation and biotechnology. Despite their importance, the evolutionary relationship, population structure and domestication history of these fungi remain unresolved. Here, we present the first global population genomic analysis of 639 A. flavus and A. oryzae isolates from clinical, environmental and food-fermentation sources across multiple continents. Our analyses reveal a complex evolutionary landscape comprising well-separated clades interspersed with highly admixed mosaic groups and potential evidence for multiple independent domestication events giving rise to A. oryzae. Clinical A. flavus isolates are distributed across several clades and mosaic groups, some overlapping with fermentation strains, highlighting an apparent role of domestication and admixture in shaping pathogen diversity. These results challenge current species boundaries and provide a framework for understanding evolutionary history, taxonomy and pangenomic architecture in these fungi, with broad implications for pathogenicity, food safety, biocontrol and metagenomic surveillance.

imafungus.pensoft.net/article/1723... Global population genomics redefines domestication and clinical diversity in the Aspergillus flavus–oryzae complex. Our new paper w/ @balintnemeth.bsky.social finally online in IMA Fungus! This has been a long journey, the first idea of this global phylogeny...