by Christoph — Among biologists, DNA is a household term, the acronym for desoxyribonucleic acid, which hardly anyone pronounces in full. But can you find your way around the zoo of prefixes that are in use and in most cases are not separated from 'DNA' by a hyphen, as for example in Z-DNA? cccDNA, rcDNA (ocDNA), mtDNA, ecDNA, cDNA, bDNA, gDNA (chrDNA), kDNA, xDNA, rDNA, tDNA, ssDNA,… and eDNA. Read more →
Deep-Sea Viruses Wreak Havoc
Noteworthy — Absorbed in our daily activities and concerns, personal, local or global, we remain largely unaware of how life unfolds on this planet. Viruses, and especially those in our vast oceans, play a major life-defining role. Read more →
Watching the flagellar motor at work
by Lucas Le Nagard — Swimming E. coli typically cover a distance equivalent to the radius of a human hair each second. It might not seem very impressive… But for a 2 µm bacterium, it corresponds to 10 body lengths per second! Much better than the swimming speed of our best athletes, which barely exceeds one body length per second. So, how does E. coli achieve this? Read more →
Bacterium Linked to Depression
Noteworthy — The human microbiome – the collection of microbes associated with our bodies – is variable, adapts to its host, but, most importantly, is increasingly recognized as important for our health and physiology. The sheer number and diversity of microbes, not to mention their interactions and activities, makes the study of the microbiome complex. How, then, can we understand what these microbes are doing? Read more →
Lost & Found #4
by Christoph — When you leave 𝕏 (formerly Twitter), it means that among the “bookmarks” you take with you, you will also come across some that contain images or videos that are mainly nice to look at and even entertaining. Two of these – no, none of the infamous cat pictures – are included today, in 'Lost & Found #4'. Read more →
Ancient Peptides to Combat Pathogens
Noteworthy — While many of our interactions with microbes are essential for our health, microbes are also well-known causes of diseases, such as the bubonic plague, that have decimated populations. We are, therefore, fortunate to count on antimicrobial drugs to eliminate harmful pathogens. Read more →
Protections and Interactions in the Beewolf Nursery
by Tobias Engl — Beewolves, their larvae, and their Streptomyces symbionts not only use multiple, largely different classes of chemical compounds to protect themselves against detrimental microbial competitors. To be most effective, these compounds are produced and deployed in a precisely timed sequence. Beewolves are solitary digger wasps that hunt on bees, paralyze them and provision single eggs with... Read more →
Not a bad hair day for Phage 7-7-1
Noteworthy — While the phages χ and PBS1 attach to the flagella of their hosts via the tail fibers, phage 7-7-1 of Agrobacterium sp. H13-3 has another trick up its sleeve – or better: on its head (capsid). Noteborn et al. Found that phage 7-7-1 sports a bunch of dreadlocks on its head, proteinaceous fibers with which it attaches to host flagella. Read more →
Enter the Pirates
by Christoph — Microbiologists know of only a small number of genuine rapacious bacterial species. In scientific terms, they are referred to as "predatory bacteria". Well-known examples are Myxococcus xanthus and its ilk, which practice "wolf pack" swarm hunting, and the more solitary vampires from the Bdellovibrio tribe. Enter the pirates with Captain Aureispira… Read more →
Diversity, Diversidad, Diversität...
Noteworthy — We are living through interesting times, to say the least. Not long ago, though now it may feel that it's been eons, we could freely celebrate microbial diversity, biodiversity, structural diversity, diversity of opinions, diversity of interests and, yes, human diversity even! Read more →