Microbe Magazine

Cover Image

Cover: Light micrograph of the foraminiferan Nonionina depressula (Magnification, ∼×350). The genomes of microbial eukaryotes such as foraminiferans vary considerably within individuals during their lifetimes, requiring them to develop ways to specify which of their genomes will be inherited (see p. 156). (Image © Astrid & Hanns-Frieder Michler/Photo Researchers, Inc.)

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Microbe Magazine, Cover Image

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FEATURES

Anaerobic Digestion Variants in the Treatment of Solid Wastes

Author: Melvin S. Finstein

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines municipal solid waste (MSW) as everyday items, including product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances, and batteries. Over two-thirds of the 254 million tons of MSW produced in 2007 ... More...

Dynamic Genomes of Eukaryotes and the Maintenance of Genomic Integrity

Authors: Laura Wegener Parfrey, and Laura A. Katz

Many biologists assume that eukaryotic genomes are transmitted stably between generations with only minor variations. Yet, this presumed constancy is at odds with data indicating that eukaryotic genomes are dynamic, varying extensively in content among many different lineages. Thus, rather than b... More...

Extracytoplasmic Function σ Factors Come of Age

Authors: Anna Staroń, and Thorsten Mascher

One important lesson learned from the field of comparative genomics is that microbial genomes are modular. Genes encoding proteins of related functions are often encoded in one or more operons that are located adjacent to each other on the bacterial chromosome. Further, what is true for gene arra... More...

CURRENT TOPICS

Bacterial Amyloids Appear To Play Role in Biofilms, Perhaps other Diseases

Author: Valerie Brown

Because many types of bacteria depend on amyloid-rich curli to stick to host surfaces, disrupting these structures might open a new avenue for combating biofilms. Amyloid structures, which consist of aggregated fibers of insoluble protein in web-like sheets, are a substantial part of what makes c... More...

Bacterial Cells Engineered to Blink in Synch

Author: Marcia Stone

Fluorescence-tagged Escherichia coli cells can be made to “blink” in unison by means of a constructed network of genes and proteins that coordinates oscillations within the growing cell population, according to Jeff Hasty and colleagues from the University of Califo... More...

S. oneidensis Moves Electrons across Membranes to Minerals

Author: Barry E. DiGregorio

Shewanella oneidensis and other anaerobic gram-negative bacterial species depend on several protein types to connect them to external and insoluble minerals containing iron or manganese. Those proteins act as wiring and deliver electrons to those min... More...

New Details about DNA CRISPRs and One That Targets RNA

Author: Carol Potera

Microbial clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats— better known as “CRISPR”—systems act in some ways like mammalian immune systems. In the case of CRISPRs, however, they enable bacteria and archaea to fend off phages and other forms of invasive DNA. That defense now also extends... More...

Cecropin-Producing Tomatoes Resist Bacterial Wilt, Spot

Author: David Holzman

As part of an effort to fight several bacterial diseases that can lead to 10% losses of tomato crops, researchers from the Republic of China on Taiwan moved genes encoding the antibacterial cecropin B peptides from lepidoptera into tomatoes. The resulting transgenic tomatoes now show resistance t... More...

Progress and Shortcomings in Federal Biodefense, Synthetic DNA Arenas

Author: Jeffrey L. Fox

In January during his State of the Union speech before Congress, President Barack Obama alluded briefly to an “initiative that will give us the capacity to respond faster and more effectively to bioterrorism or an infectious disease—a plan that will counter threats at home and strengthen public h... More...

ASM NEWS

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International Affairs

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Author: Noel R. Krieg

DEPARTMENTS

Studying the Human Microbiome

Author: Susan Garges

We would like to respond to Theodore White's letter (“Is the Human Microbiome too Bacteriocentric?, Microbe, December 2009, p. 536) on the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Human Microbiome Project (HMP). Dr. White's letter may give readers the impression that HMP is foc... More...

Public Affairs Report

Ras/cAMP Pathway Reveals New Vulnerabilities in Fungal Pathogens

The Ras and cAMP pathways control growth, differentiation, and virulence of pathogenic fungi, including Cryptococcus neoformans, which causes lethal fungal meningitis. But these pathways are only partially mapped. Yong-Sun Bahn of Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, et... More...

Transcriptome Analysis of O157:H7 in Fresh Cut Lettuce

Leafy vegetables are the foods second most commonly associated with outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States, most notably when contaminated with Escherichia coli O157:H7. Now Maria Brandl and colleagues of the Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Albany,... More...

Pyrosequencing Enables Quick Detection of Resistance Markers in H1N1

The ability to screen pathogens for drug resistance is very important in the clinic. Larisa V. Gubareva, Varough M. Deyde, and colleagues of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed in the H1N1 influenza virus of the 2009 pandemic that pyrosequencing enabled detection of mutations su... More...

New Antibiofilm Patent Targets Amyloids

Amyloids are the characteristic proteins in Alzheimer's disease plaques. Peter Lipke of the City University of New York (CUNY) et al. used bioinformatics and in vitro and in vivo studies to show that almost all yeast cell adhesion proteins involved in adherence between yeast cells, to mammal... More...

Researchers Reconstitute Regulatory Cascade, and It Works!

Many pathogenic and symbiotic gram-negative bacteria express a highly conserved type III secretion system (T3SS) involved in assembling a macromolecular needle complex that injects toxins into eukaryotic hosts. In a series of earlier papers, Timothy L. Yahr and colleagues characterized a cascade ... More...

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24–28 April 2010.

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Small Things Considered

Because it prefers to dine on some of our valued crop plants, the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) is considered a major pest—and thus is a Bad Guy from our perspective. Pea aphids are not without their enemies. Enemy number one is a parasitoid wasp, Aphidius ervi. A... More...

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