Microbe Magazine

The human B19 erythrovirus appears to be evolving more rapidly than expected, according Edward C. Holmes of the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and his collaborators, who report their findings in the April Journal of Virology (80:3666– 3669). Their work challenges co... More...

Thousands of pairs of genes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutually back up one another, one compensating when the other member of a pair develops a defect, according to Jef D. Boeke and his collaborators at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. This gene net... More...

Experimental RNA interference (RNAi) techniques—although still cumbersome—appear capable of reducing prion proteins in livestock and possibly of eliminating prion-related diseases in such species, according to Gregory J. Hannon and Michael C. Golding at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in Col... More...

The rates of antibiotic-resistant invasive pneumococcal infections decreased among young children and older persons in the years after a conjugate vaccine that guards against seven prevalent types of pneumococcal infections came into use, according to Cynthia Whitney and her collaborators from th... More...

Plants react to viral and bacterial pathogens through mechanisms that researchers are learning to exploit on the molecular level, according to several experts who spoke last April at a conference, “From Functional Genomics of Model Organisms to Crop Plants for Global Health,” convened by the Nati... More...

Through the 1990s, Charles Arntzen traveled the lecture circuit, describing technologies for producing edible vaccines in the form of antigen-carrying bananas or other tissues from green plants. Now the Arizona State University (ASU) researcher calls himself guilty of fostering this “oddball” ide... More...

Patients with a rare type of prostate cancer carry a retrovirus that is closely related to a cancer-causing virus found in mice, making these the first documented cases of human infection with a retrovirus that is native to rodents, according to Robert Silverman of Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, ... More...

A bacterial protein called WrbA, although long considered a repressor-binding protein, instead protects cells against oxidative stress, according to J. Greg Ferry of The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in University Park and his graduate student Eric V. Patridge. Their findings underscore the... More...

Immunizing pigs with the outer-membrane, receptor protein for hemoglobin from Haemophilus ducreyi protects such animals against becoming infected by this gram-negative pathogen and blocks recovery of viable bacteria from “this highly relevant animal model,” according to Christopher Elkins ... More...