Microbe Magazine

Antibiotic resistance genes can be reversibly silenced without disrupting the genes themselves or their promoters, according to Virve I. Enne and Peter M. Bennett of the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, and their collaborators. The research, published in the September Antimicrobial Agent... More...

Microbial detritus may reside in the dark varnish of desert rocks, but microorganisms apparently do not directly partake in forming those varnishes, according to Randall Perry of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College in London, United Kingdom, and his collaborators. ... More...

A recently identified cell-surface receptor, QseC, that is associated with diarrhea-causing Escherichia coli O157:H7 responds not only to AI-3 quorum-sensing signals of gut flora but also to human adrenergic hormones, according to microbiologist Vanessa Sperandio and her colleagues at the ... More...

Tuberculosis caused by drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a far greater risk to human health than medical experts assume, according to Gary Schoolnik of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., and his collaborators. In particular, resistant strains of M. tuberculosis isol... More...

Cells of Escherichia coli adapt to the stress of reduced gravity by changing expression of more than 400 genes— about half go up, while the others go down, according to Raja Vukanti of Kent State University and collaborators, who presented their findings at the poster session “Microbial Re... More...

Recent developments on the influenza front include:

The European Space Agency (ESA) is expanding a low-Earth-orbit research program to study issues such as prebiotic chemistry, survival of microorganisms in space, and whether such organisms could survive being transplanted from one planet or solar system to another. If so, it could mean that micro... More...

Using γ-radiation to inactivate bacteria may prove a safer and more effective approach to producing vaccines than traditional heat or chemical treatment steps, according to Eyal Raz, Sandip Datta, and Joshua Fierer of the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. Their prototype va... More...

Antibiotics fail to cure chronic ear infections, also called otitis media (OM), because they are due to biofilms — not planktonic bacteria — colonizing the middle ear, according to Garth Ehrlich, executive director of the Allegheny Singer Research Institute Center for Genomic Sciences in Pittsbur... More...

Officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a ruling, effective in August, providing for “the safe use of a bacteriophage preparation” on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products as an antimicrobial agent against Listeria monocytogenes. The FDA ruling came in response to a pet... More...