ZMB Member Alexander Probst

ZMB Member
Alexander Probst

Next ZMB-Member
Alexander Probst portrait
© UDE

Prof. Dr. Alexander Probst

Group

Environmental Metagenomics

Research Center One Health Ruhr
University Alliance Ruhr
Faculty of Chemistry
University of Duisburg-Essen
Universitätsstr. 2
45141 Essen

Research Overview

Alexander Probst ist a highly interdisciplinary researcher. As a trained microbiologist, whose research is dominated by bioinformatics, he is an appointed W3 professor at the Faculty of Chemistry. His research entangles primarily the One Health and Ecosystem Health aspect, addresses fundamental questions in ecophysiology of microorganisms and viruses, deals with deep groundwater and the deep biosphere in general, and focuses on aspects of biodiversity and global dispersal of microbes across aquatic ecosystems.

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Press Releases

Selected Publications

    Journal articles

  • Hug, Laura A.; Hatzenpichler, Roland; Moraru, Liliana Cristina; Soares, André R.; Meyer, Folker; Heyder, Anke; Probst, Alexander J.; The Data Reuse Consortium
    A roadmap for equitable reuse of public microbiome data
    In: Nature Microbiology, Vol. 10, 2025, Nr. 10, pp. 2384 – 2395
    DOI
  • Trubl, Gareth; Probst, Alexander J.
    Clarifying Terminology in Microbial Ecology : A Call for Precision in Scientific Communication
    In: Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 27, 2025, Nr. 9, e70177
    DOI
  • Valentin-Alvarado, Luis E.; Fakra, Sirine C.; Probst, Alexander J.; Giska, Jonathan R.; Jaffe, Alexander L.; Oltrogge, Luke M.; West-Roberts, Jacob; Rowland, Joel; Manga, Michael; Savage, David F.; Greening, Chris; Baker, Brett J.; Banfield, Jillian F.
    Autotrophic biofilms sustained by deeply sourced groundwater host diverse bacteria implicated in sulfur and hydrogen metabolism
    In: Microbiome, Vol. 12, 2024, Nr. 1, 15
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Shah, Manan; Bornemann, Till; Nuy, Julia; Hahn, Martin W.; Probst, Alexander J.; Beisser, Daniela; Boenigk, Jens
    Genome-resolved metagenomics reveals the effect of nutrient availability on bacterial genomic properties across 44 European freshwater lakes
    In: Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 26, 2024, Nr. 6, e16634
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Lezcano, María Ángeles; Bornemann, Till; Sánchez-García, Laura; Carrizo, Daniel; Adam, Panagiotis; Esser, Sarah P.; Cabrol, Nathalie A.; Probst, Alexander J.; Parro, Víctor
    Hyperexpansion of genetic diversity and metabolic capacity of extremophilic bacteria and archaea in ancient Andean lake sediments
    In: Microbiome, Vol. 12, 2024, Nr. 1, 176
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Figueroa-Gonzalez, Perla Abigail; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Hinzke, Tjorven; Maaß, Sandra; Trautwein-Schult, Anke; Starke, Joern; Moore, Carrie J.; Esser, Sarah P.; Plewka, Julia; Hesse, Tobias; Schmidt, Torsten C.; Schreiber, Ulrich; Bor, Batbileg; Becher, Dörte; Probst, Alexander J.
    Metaproteogenomics resolution of a high-CO₂ aquifer community reveals a complex cellular adaptation of groundwater Gracilibacteria to a host-dependent lifestyle
    In: Microbiome, Vol. 12, 2024, Nr. 1, 194
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Lee, Kang Soo; Landry, Zachary; Athar, Awais; Alcolombri, Uria; Pramoj Na Ayutthaya, Pratchaya; Berry, David; de Bettignies, Philippe; Cheng, Ji-Xin; Csucs, Gabor; Cui, Li; Deckert, Volker; Dieing, Thomas; Dionne, Jennifer; Doskocil, Ondrej; D’Souza, Glen; García-Timermans, Cristina; Gierlinger, Notburga; Goda, Keisuke; Hatzenpichler, Roland; Henshaw, Richard J.; Huang, Wei E.; Iermak, Ievgeniia; Ivleva, Natalia P.; Kneipp, Janina; Kubryk, Patrick; Küsel, Kirsten; Lee, Tae Kwon; Lee, Sung Sik; Ma, Bo; Martínez-Pérez, Clara; Matousek, Pavel; Meckenstock, Rainer; Min, Wei; Mojzeš, Peter; Müller, Oliver; Kumar, Naresh; Nielsen, Per Halkjær; Notingher, Ioan; Palatinszky, Márton; Pereira, Fátima C.; Pezzotti, Giuseppe; Pilat, Zdenek; Plesinger, Filip; Popp, Jürgen; Probst, Alexander J.; Riva, Alessandra; Saleh, Amr. A. E.; Samek, Ota; Sapers, Haley M.; Schubert, Olga T.; Stubbusch, Astrid K. M.; Tadesse, Loza F.; Taylor, Gordon T.; Wagner, Michael; Wang, Jing; Yin, Huabing; Yue, Yang; Zenobi, Renato; Zini, Jacopo; Sarkans, Ugis; Stocker, Roman
    MicrobioRaman : an open-access web repository for microbiological Raman spectroscopy data
    In: Nature Microbiology, 2024, Nr. 9, pp. 1152 – 1156
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Wirbel, Jakob; Bhatt, Ami S.; Probst, Alexander J.
    The journey to understand previously unknown microbial genes
    In: Nature, Vol. 626, 2024, Nr. 7998, pp. 267 – 269
    DOI
  • Esser, Sarah P.; Rahlff, Janina; Zhao, Weishu; Predl, Michael; Plewka, Julia; Sures, Katharina; Wimmer, Franziska; Lee, Janey; Adam, Panagiotis; McGonigle, Julia; Turzynski, Victoria; Banas, Indra; Schwank, Katrin; Krupovic, Mart; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Figueroa-Gonzalez, Perla Abigail; Jarett, Jessica; Rattei, Thomas; Amano, Yuki; Blaby, Ian K.; Cheng, Jan-Fang; Brazelton, William J.; Beisel, Chase L.; Woyke, Tanja; Zhang, Ying; Probst, Alexander J.
    A predicted CRISPR-mediated symbiosis between uncultivated archaea
    In: Nature Microbiology, Vol. 8, 2023, Nr. 9, pp. 1619 – 1633
    DOI
  • Simon, Sophie A.; Schmidt, Katharina; Griesdorn, Lea; Soares, André R.; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Probst, Alexander J.
    Dancing the Nanopore limbo – Nanopore metagenomics from small DNA quantities for bacterial genome reconstruction
    In: BMC Genomics, Vol. 24, 2023, Nr. 1, 727
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Rahlff, Janina; Esser, Sarah P.; Plewka, Julia; Heinrichs, Mara Elena; Soares, André; Scarchilli, Claudio; Grigioni, Paolo; Wex, Heike; Giebel, Helge-Ansgar; Probst, Alexander J.
    Marine viruses disperse bidirectionally along the natural water cycle
    In: Nature Communications, Vol. 14, 2023, Nr. 1, 6354
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Banas, Indra; Esser, Sarah P.; Turzynski, Victoria; Soares, André; Novikova, Polina; May, Patrick; Moraru, Cristina; Hasenberg, Mike; Rahlff, Janina; Wilmes, Paul; Klingl, Andreas; Probst, Alexander J.
    Spatio-functional organization in virocells of small uncultivated archaea from the deep biosphere
    In: ISME Journal, Vol. 17, 2023, Nr. 10, pp. 1789 – 1792
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Stach, Tom L.; Sieber, Guido; Shah, Manan; Simon, Sophie A.; Soares, André; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Plewka, Julia; Künkel, Julian; Becker, Christian; Meyer, Folker; Boenigk, Jens; Probst, Alexander J.
    Temporal disturbance of a model stream ecosystem by high microbial diversity from treated wastewater
    In: MicrobiologyOpen, Vol. 12, 2023, Nr. 2, e1347
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Turzynski, Victoria; Griesdorn, Lea; Moraru, Cristina; Soares, André; Simon, Sophie A.; Stach, Tom L.; Rahlff, Janina; Esser, Sarah P.; Probst, Alexander J.
    Virus-Host Dynamics in Archaeal Groundwater Biofilms and the Associated Bacterial Community Composition
    In: Viruses, Vol. 15, 2023, Nr. 4, 910
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Bornemann, Till L. V.; Esser, Sarah P.; Stach, Tom L.; Burg, Tim; Probst, Alexander J.
    uBin : A manual refining tool for genomes from metagenomes
    In: Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 25, 2023, Nr. 6, pp. 1077 – 1083
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Neri, Uri; Wolf, Yuri I.; Roux, Simon; Camargo, Antonio Pedro; Lee, Benjamin; Kazlauskas, Darius; Chen, I. Min; Ivanova, Natalia; Zeigler Allen, Lisa; Paez-Espino, David; Bryant, Donald A.; Bhaya, Devaki; Narrowe, Adrienne B.; Probst, Alexander J.; Sczyrba, Alexander; Kohler, Annegret; Séguin, Armand; Shade, Ashley; Campbell, Barbara J.; Lindahl, Björn D.; Reese, Brandi Kiel; Roque, Breanna M.; DeRito, Chris; Averill, Colin; Cullen, Daniel; Beck, David A.C.; Walsh, David A.; Ward, David M.; Wu, Dongying; Eloe-Fadrosh, Emiley; Brodie, Eoin L.; Young, Erica B.; Lilleskov, Erik A.; Castillo, Federico J.; Martin, Francis M.; LeCleir, Gary R.; Attwood, Graeme T.; Cadillo-Quiroz, Hinsby; Simon, Holly M.; Hewson, Ian; Grigoriev, Igor V.; Tiedje, James M.; Jansson, Janet K.; Lee, Janey; VanderGheynst, Jean S.; Dangl, Jeff; Bowman, Jeff S.; Blanchard, Jeffrey L.; Bowen, Jennifer L.; Xu, Jiangbing; Banfield, Jillian F.; Deming, Jody W.; Kostka, Joel E.; Gladden, John M.; Rapp, Josephine Z.; Sharpe, Joshua; McMahon, Katherine D.; Treseder, Kathleen K.; Bidle, Kay D.; Wrighton, Kelly C.; Thamatrakoln, Kimberlee; Nusslein, Klaus; Meredith, Laura K.; Ramirez, Lucia; Buee, Marc; Huntemann, Marcel; Kalyuzhnaya, Marina G.; Waldrop, Mark P.; Sullivan, Matthew B.; Schrenk, Matthew O.; Hess, Matthias; Vega, Michael A.; O'Malley, Michelle A.; Medina, Monica; Gilbert, Naomi E.; Delherbe, Nathalie; Mason, Olivia U.; Dijkstra, Paul; Chuckran, Peter F.; Baldrian, Petr; Constant, Philippe; Stepanauskas, Ramunas; Daly, Rebecca A.; Lamendella, Regina; Gruninger, Robert J.; McKay, Robert M.; Hylander, Samuel; Lebeis, Sarah L.; Esser, Sarah P.; Acinas, Silvia G.; Wilhelm, Steven S.; Singer, Steven W.; Tringe, Susannah S.; Woyke, Tanja; Reddy, T.B.K.; Bell, Terrence H.; Mock, Thomas; McAllister, Tim; Thiel, Vera; Denef, Vincent J.; Liu, Wen-Tso; Martens-Habbena, Willm; Allen Liu, Xiao-Jun; Cooper, Zachary S.; Wang, Zhong; Krupovic, Mart; Dolja, Valerian V.; Kyrpides, Nikos C.; Koonin, Eugene V.; Gophna, Uri; O’Malley, Michelle A.
    Expansion of the global RNA virome reveals diverse clades of bacteriophages
    In: Cell, Vol. 185, 2022, Nr. 21, pp. 4023 – 4037.e18
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Bornemann, Till L. V.; Adam, Panagiotis; Turzynski, Victoria; Schreiber, Ulrich; Figueroa-Gonzalez, Perla Abigail; Rahlff, Janina; Köster, Daniel; Schmidt, Torsten Claus; Schunk, Ralf; Krauthausen, Bernhard; Probst, Alexander J.
    Genetic diversity in terrestrial subsurface ecosystems impacted by geological degassing
    In: Nature Communications, Vol. 13, 2022, Nr. 1, 284
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Hedlund, Brian P; Chuvochina, Maria; Hugenholtz, Philip; Konstantinidis, Konstantinos T; Murray, Alison E; Palmer, Marike; Parks, Donovan H; Probst, Alexander J.; Reysenbach, Anna-Louise; Rodriguez-R, Luis M; Rossello-Mora, Ramon; Sutcliffe, Iain C; Venter, Stephanus N; Whitman, William B
    SeqCode : A nomenclatural code for prokaryotes described from sequence data
    In: Nature Microbiology, Vol. 7, 2022, Nr. 10, pp. 1702 – 1708
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Hwang, Yunha; Schulze-Makuch, Dirk; Arens, Felix L.; Saenz, Johan S.; Adam, Panagiotis; Sager, Christof; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Zhao, Weishu; Zhang, Ying; Airo, Alessandro; Schloter, Michael; Probst, Alexander J.
    Leave no stone unturned : individually adapted xerotolerant Thaumarchaeota sheltered below the boulders of the Atacama Desert hyperarid core
    In: Microbiome, Vol. 9, 2021, Nr. 1, 234
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Rahlff, Janina; Turzynski, Victoria; Esser, Sarah P.; Monsees, Indra; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Figueroa-Gonzalez, Perla Abigail; Schulz, Frederik; Woyke, Tanja; Klingl, Andreas; Moraru, Cristina; Probst, Alexander J.
    Lytic archaeal viruses infect abundant primary producers in Earth’s crust
    In: Nature Communications, Vol. 12, 2021, Nr. 1, 4642
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
  • Al-Shayeb, Basem; Sachdeva, Rohan; Chen, Lin-Xing; Ward, Fred; Munk, Patrick; Devoto, Audra; Castelle, Cindy J.; Olm, Matthew R.; Bouma-Gregson, Keith; Amano, Yuki; He, Christine; Méheust, Raphaël; Brooks, Brandon; Thomas, Alex; Lavy, Adi; Matheus-Carnevali, Paula; Sun, Christine; Goltsman, Daniela S. A.; Borton, Mikayla A.; Sharrar, Allison; Jaffe, Alexander L.; Nelson, Tara C.; Kantor, Rose; Keren, Ray; Lane, Katherine R.; Farag, Ibrahim F.; Lei, Shufei; Finstad, Kari; Amundson, Ronald; Anantharaman, Karthik; Zhou, Jinglie; Probst, Alexander J.; Power, Mary E.; Tringe, Susannah G.; Li, Wen-Jun; Wrighton, Kelly; Harrison, Sue; Morowitz, Michael; Relman, David A.; Doudna, Jennifer A.; Lehours, Anne-Catherine; Warren, Lesley; Cate, Jamie H. D.; Santini, Joanne M.; Banfield, Jillian F.
    Clades of huge phages from across Earth’s ecosystems
    In: Nature, Vol. 578, 2020, Nr. 7795, pp. 425 – 431
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Geesink, Patricia; Wegner, Carl-Eric; Probst, Alexander J.; Herrmann, Martina; Dam, Hang T.; Kaster, Anne-Kristin; Küsel, Kirsten
    Genome-inferred spatio-temporal resolution of an uncultivated Roizmanbacterium reveals its ecological preferences in groundwater
    In: Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 22, 2020, Nr. 2, pp. 726 – 737
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Müller, Hubert; Marozava, Sviatlana; Probst, Alexander J.; Meckenstock, Rainer
    Groundwater cable bacteria conserve energy by sulfur disproportionation
    In: ISME Journal, Vol. 14, 2020, Nr. 2, pp. 623 – 634
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Probst, Alexander J.; Elling, Felix J.; Castelle, Cindy J.; Zhu, Qingzeng; Elvert, Marcus; Birarda, Giovanni; Holman, Hoi-Ying N.; Lane, Katherine R.; Ladd, Bethany; Ryan, M. Cathryn; Woyke, Tanja; Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe; Banfield, Jillian F.
    Lipid analysis of CO₂-rich subsurface aquifers suggests an autotrophy-based deep biosphere with lysolipids enriched in CPR bacteria
    In: ISME Journal, Vol. 14, 2020, pp. 1547 – 1560
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Murray, Alison E.; Freudenstein, John; Gribaldo, Simonetta; Hatzenpichler, Roland; Hugenholtz, Philip; Kämpfer, Peter; Konstantinidis, Konstantinos T.; Lane, Christopher E.; Papke, R. Thane; Parks, Donovan H.; Rossello-Mora, Ramon; Stott, Matthew B.; Sutcliffe, Iain C.; Thrash, J. Cameron; Venter, Stephanus N.; Whitman, William B.; Acinas, Silvia G.; Amann, Rudolf I.; Anantharaman, Karthik; Armengaud, Jean; Baker, Brett J.; Barco, Roman A.; Bode, Helge B.; Boyd, Eric S.; Brady, Carrie L.; Carini, Paul; Chain, Patrick S. G.; Colman, Daniel R.; DeAngelis, Kristen M.; de los Rios, Maria Asuncion; Estrada-de los Santos, Paulina; Dunlap, Christopher A.; Eisen, Jonathan A.; Emerson, David; Ettema, Thijs J. G.; Eveillard, Damien; Girguis, Peter R.; Hentschel, Ute; Hollibaugh, James T.; Hug, Laura A.; Inskeep, William P.; Ivanova, Elena P.; Klenk, Hans-Peter; Li, Wen-Jun; Lloyd, Karen G.; Löffler, Frank E.; Makhalanyane, Thulani P.; Moser, Duane P.; Nunoura, Takuro; Palmer, Marike; Parro, Victor; Pedrós-Alió, Carlos; Probst, Alexander J.; Smits, Theo H. M.; Steen, Andrew D.; Steenkamp, Emma T.; Spang, Anja; Stewart, Frank J.; Tiedje, James M.; Vandamme, Peter; Wagner, Michael; Wang, Feng-Ping; Hedlund, Brian P.; Reysenbach, Anna-Louise
    Roadmap for naming uncultivated Archaea and Bacteria
    In: Nature Microbiology, Vol. 5, 2020, Nr. 8, pp. 987 – 994
    DOI (Open Access)
  • Figueroa-Gonzalez, Perla Abigail; Bornemann, Till L. V.; Adam, Panagiotis; Plewka, Julia; Révész, Fruzsina; von Hagen, Christian A.; Táncsics, András; Probst, Alexander J.
    Saccharibacteria as Organic Carbon Sinks in Hydrocarbon-Fueled Communities
    In: Frontiers in Microbiology, Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 587782
    DOI, Online Full Text (Open Access)
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