by Elio — Life inside cells of the immune system presents a special challenge to pathogenic bacteria. Some are killed after being taken up, others survive. One favorite mechanism used by Shigella, Listeria, and Rickettsia, among others, is to escape from the phagocytic vacuole into the cytoplasm. This avoids the action of enzymes… Read more →
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TB or not TB?
by Jaime Zlamal, Andy Cutting, and Steven Quistad — As one would expect, creating a functional human body with 10 fingers and 10 toes from a single cell is a highly coordinated process of cell differentiation. By comparison, the growth of a single rod-shaped bacterium and its division into two cells would be expected to be relatively simple. A bacterial cell… Read more →
The Two Quantitative Steps in the Biology Growth Curve
by Elio — We are witnessing a highly influential influx of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers into biology. This is not the first time. Over the centuries, biology has been blessed by the involvement of people from other fields. During the last half century or so, we can point to two distinct incoming waves, each… Read more →
Sex to the Rescue
by Elio — Life is tough out there. If chemistry (via oxidizing radicals) doesn’t get you, sunlight (via UV irradiation) will. No wonder that cells, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, have an intense preoccupation with keeping their DNA intact. In most organisms, a considerable portion of the genome is devoted to making sure… Read more →
Fine Reading: Nematodes & HGT
by Elio — The larger the catalog of sequenced genomes, the greater the chance for seeing horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in action. Although reports of HGT between prokaryotes and eukaryotes have appeared sporadically, it seems that incontrovertible evidence is only beginning to appear now. Indeed, the genomes of nematodes reveal that genes have… Read more →
Salmonella’s Exclusive Intestinal Restaurant
by Elio — Interesting, how we get carried away by exciting concepts. I am thinking about how the study of pathogens has focused so much on the microbes’ virulence factors, by which we mean nasty substances such as toxins, adhesins, and invasins that participate directly in the disease process. Their study has dominated microbial… Read more →
Talmudic Question #85
If small microbes tend to be eaten by bigger ones, why aren’t all microbes big? Read more →
TWiM #28: Not unorganized bags of enzymes
Vincent, Michael, and Elio review how competition within a host drives virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae, and the expanding universe of the bacterial cytoskeleton. Read more →
How to Reform a Resistant Bacterium
by Merry Youle — A recent paper by Edgar and colleagues captured my attention with a new twist on how to combat antibiotic resistance: Our overall goal in this study is to provide a proof of principle for a genetic system that is able to restore drug sensitivity to drug-resistant pathogens residing on… Read more →
Onboard a Flying Syringe
by Merry Youle — Each year we spend vast sums of money trying to obliterate an enormous number of insects. Some are targeted because they munch on plants we want to eat ourselves, others just because they have the audacity to want to share our homes with us. Our greatest concern, however, lies with… Read more →