Xavier Nassif

Xavier Nassif, M.D-PhD, is Professor of Microbiology at the Medical School Paris Descartes. He earned his Medical Degree in 1987 and completed his PhD at Institut Pasteur in 1989. Following a postdoctoral fellowship, he joined the Faculty of Medicine of Paris Descartes in 1992. Xavier is former head of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Hospital Necker, former head of Institut Pasteur Lille. Currently, Xavier co-leads the team alongside Alain Charbit.


Last News of the Lab

Grant ANR PRC and PRME

24/07/2023 .Emmanuelle Bille was granted ANR PRME for her project on N. meningitidis and filamentous phage biology. The Neisseria group ...

Congratulation to Morgane Wuckelt and Elif UYAR

24/07/2023 .Morgane Wuckelt and Elif Uyar have been awarded a PhD Track Grant from BioSPC. We are all very proud ...

Engineered human microvasculature to study human infectious diseases

27/03/2023 . Implantation of engineered human microvasculature to study human infectious diseases in mouse models.Sophia Schönherr-Hellec et al iScience 2023 ...


Last 25 Publications

  1. Fourgeaud, J, Regnault, B, Ok, V, Da Rocha, N, Sitterlé, É, Mekouar, M et al.. Performance of clinical metagenomics in France: a prospective observational study. Lancet Microbe. 2024;5 (1):e52-e61. doi: 10.1016/S2666-5247(23)00244-6. PubMed PMID:38048804 .
  2. Wu, S, Coureuil, M, Nassif, X, Tautz, L. NMA1982 is a Novel Phosphatase and Potential Virulence Factor in Neisseria meningitidis. bioRxiv. 2023; :. doi: 10.1101/2023.05.23.541968. PubMed PMID:37292688 PubMed Central PMC10245925.
  3. Schönherr-Hellec, S, Chatzopoulou, E, Barnier, JP, Atlas, Y, Dupichaud, S, Guilbert, T et al.. Implantation of engineered human microvasculature to study human infectious diseases in mouse models. iScience. 2023;26 (4):106286. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106286. PubMed PMID:36942053 PubMed Central PMC10024136.
  4. Ramond, E, Lepissier, A, Ding, X, Bouvier, C, Tan, X, Euphrasie, D et al.. Lung-Adapted Staphylococcus aureus Isolates With Dysfunctional Agr System Trigger a Proinflammatory Response. J Infect Dis. 2022;226 (7):1276-1285. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiac191. PubMed PMID:35524969 .
  5. Barnier, JP, Meyer, J, Kolappan, S, Bouzinba-Ségard, H, Gesbert, G, Jamet, A et al.. The minor pilin PilV provides a conserved adhesion site throughout the antigenically variable meningococcal type IV pilus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021;118 (45):. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2109364118. PubMed PMID:34725157 PubMed Central PMC8609321.
  6. Barnier, JP, Euphrasie, D, Join-Lambert, O, Audry, M, Schonherr-Hellec, S, Schmitt, T et al.. Type IV pilus retraction enables sustained bacteremia and plays a key role in the outcome of meningococcal sepsis in a humanized mouse model. PLoS Pathog. 2021;17 (2):e1009299. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009299. PubMed PMID:33592056 PubMed Central PMC7909687.
  7. Jamet, A, Guglielmini, J, Brancotte, B, Coureuil, M, Euphrasie, D, Meyer, J et al.. High-Resolution Typing of Staphylococcus epidermidis Based on Core Genome Multilocus Sequence Typing To Investigate the Hospital Spread of Multidrug-Resistant Clones. J Clin Microbiol. 2021;59 (3):. doi: 10.1128/JCM.02454-20. PubMed PMID:33328176 PubMed Central PMC8106705.
  8. Dos Santos Souza, I, Maïssa, N, Ziveri, J, Morand, PC, Coureuil, M, Nassif, X et al.. Meningococcal disease: A paradigm of type-IV pilus dependent pathogenesis. Cell Microbiol. 2020;22 (4):e13185. doi: 10.1111/cmi.13185. PubMed PMID:32185901 .
  9. Le Guennec, L, Virion, Z, Bouzinba-Ségard, H, Robbe-Masselot, C, Léonard, R, Nassif, X et al.. Receptor recognition by meningococcal type IV pili relies on a specific complex N-glycan. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020;117 (5):2606-2612. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1919567117. PubMed PMID:31964828 PubMed Central PMC7007569.
  10. Audry, M, Robbe-Masselot, C, Barnier, JP, Gachet, B, Saubaméa, B, Schmitt, A et al.. Airway Mucus Restricts Neisseria meningitidis Away from Nasopharyngeal Epithelial Cells and Protects the Mucosa from Inflammation. mSphere. 2019;4 (6):. doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00494-19. PubMed PMID:31801841 PubMed Central PMC6893211.
  11. Simonin, J, Bille, E, Crambert, G, Noel, S, Dreano, E, Edwards, A et al.. Author Correction: Airway surface liquid acidification initiates host defense abnormalities in Cystic Fibrosis. Sci Rep. 2019;9 (1):17535. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54253-4. PubMed PMID:31754179 PubMed Central PMC6872590.
  12. Le Guennec, L, Coureuil, M, Nassif, X, Bourdoulous, S. Strategies used by bacterial pathogens to cross the blood-brain barrier. Cell Microbiol. 2020;22 (1):e13132. doi: 10.1111/cmi.13132. PubMed PMID:31658405 .
  13. Virion, Z, Doly, S, Saha, K, Lambert, M, Guillonneau, F, Bied, C et al.. Sialic acid mediated mechanical activation of β2 adrenergic receptors by bacterial pili. Nat Commun. 2019;10 (1):4752. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12685-6. PubMed PMID:31628314 PubMed Central PMC6800425.
  14. Tan, X, Ramond, E, Jamet, A, Barnier, JP, Decaux-Tramoni, B, Dupuis, M et al.. Transketolase of Staphylococcus aureus in the Control of Master Regulators of Stress Response During Infection. J Infect Dis. 2019;220 (12):1967-1976. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiz404. PubMed PMID:31420648 .
  15. Coureuil, M, Jamet, A, Bille, E, Lécuyer, H, Bourdoulous, S, Nassif, X et al.. Molecular interactions between Neisseria meningitidis and its human host. Cell Microbiol. 2019;21 (11):e13063. doi: 10.1111/cmi.13063. PubMed PMID:31167044 PubMed Central PMC6899865.
  16. Simonin, J, Bille, E, Crambert, G, Noel, S, Dreano, E, Edwards, A et al.. Airway surface liquid acidification initiates host defense abnormalities in Cystic Fibrosis. Sci Rep. 2019;9 (1):6516. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-42751-4. PubMed PMID:31019198 PubMed Central PMC6482305.
  17. Vidal, C, Moulin, F, Nassif, X, Galmiche, L, Borgel, D, Charbit, A et al.. Fulminant arterial vasculitis as an unusual complication of disseminated staphylococcal disease due to the emerging CC1 methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus clone: a case report. BMC Infect Dis. 2019;19 (1):302. doi: 10.1186/s12879-019-3933-3. PubMed PMID:30943907 PubMed Central PMC6446405.
  18. Denis, K, Le Bris, M, Le Guennec, L, Barnier, JP, Faure, C, Gouge, A et al.. Targeting Type IV pili as an antivirulence strategy against invasive meningococcal disease. Nat Microbiol. 2019;4 (6):972-984. doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0395-8. PubMed PMID:30911127 .
  19. Tan, X, Coureuil, M, Ramond, E, Euphrasie, D, Dupuis, M, Tros, F et al.. Chronic Staphylococcus aureus Lung Infection Correlates With Proteogenomic and Metabolic Adaptations Leading to an Increased Intracellular Persistence. Clin Infect Dis. 2019;69 (11):1937-1945. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciz106. PubMed PMID:30753350 .
  20. Lécuyer, H, Nassif, X, Coureuil, M. [Meningococcus purpura fulminans, a partially solved mystery]. Med Sci (Paris). 2018;34 (12):1038-1041. doi: 10.1051/medsci/2018288. PubMed PMID:30623761 .
  21. Le Gallou, S, Zhou, Z, Thai, LH, Fritzen, R, de Los Aires, AV, Mégret, J et al.. A splenic IgM memory subset with antibacterial specificities is sustained from persistent mucosal responses. J Exp Med. 2018;215 (8):2035-2053. doi: 10.1084/jem.20180977. PubMed PMID:29959173 PubMed Central PMC6080908.
  22. Lécuyer, H, Virion, Z, Barnier, JP, Matczak, S, Bourdoulous, S, Bianchini, E et al.. An ADAM-10 dependent EPCR shedding links meningococcal interaction with endothelial cells to purpura fulminans. PLoS Pathog. 2018;14 (4):e1006981. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006981. PubMed PMID:29630665 PubMed Central PMC5908201.
  23. Jamet, A, Charbit, A, Nassif, X. Antibacterial Toxins: Gram-Positive Bacteria Strike Back!. Trends Microbiol. 2018;26 (2):89-91. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2017.11.003. PubMed PMID:29174101 .
  24. Capel, E, Barnier, JP, Zomer, AL, Bole-Feysot, C, Nussbaumer, T, Jamet, A et al.. Peripheral blood vessels are a niche for blood-borne meningococci. Virulence. 2017;8 (8):1808-1819. doi: 10.1080/21505594.2017.1391446. PubMed PMID:29099305 PubMed Central PMC5810509.
  25. Wang, F, Coureuil, M, Osinski, T, Orlova, A, Altindal, T, Gesbert, G et al.. Cryoelectron Microscopy Reconstructions of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Neisseria gonorrhoeae Type IV Pili at Sub-nanometer Resolution. Structure. 2017;25 (9):1423-1435.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.str.2017.07.016. PubMed PMID:28877506 PubMed Central PMC8189185.
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