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A blog for sharing appreciation of the width and depth of microbes and microbial activities on this planet.

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Insect Symbiont–Host Balance

by Mechas  
The diversity of life on earth is not only astounding but inundated with myriad expressions of host-symbiont relationships. Among these, microbial symbionts are so pervasive that they could be considered the rule, rather than the exception, among multicellular eukaryotes. Read more →

Posted on September 25, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gene Transfer Agents and Survival

by Mechas  
We recently posted an update on horizontal gene transfer (HGT) to highlight the existence of strategies used by bacteria to exchange DNA – in addition to those traditionally acknowledged, that is transformation, transduction and conjugation. One of these more recently recognized mechanisms involves entities called gene transfer agents (GTAs). Read more →

Posted on September 21, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution | Permalink | Comments (0)

Updating Horizontal Gene Transfer

by Mechas and Roberto  
We recently prepared a lecture that included a brief discussion of bacterial evolution. Of course, we covered horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which we consider a key pillar in the evolutionary process. We dutifully began our presentation by listing, perforce: transformation, conjugation, and transduction. Read more →

Posted on August 17, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Evolution, Teachers Corner | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life Before the LUCA

by Roberto  
Summer is a time for pondering and Summer is reaching its peak in the Northern hemisphere. The extremely hot and humid weather now so pervasive in many locations might, in some bodies, feel like a hydrothermal vent. Read more →

Posted on July 06, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eukaryogenesis: Questions in Questions in Questions

by Janie  
For a very long time, symbiogenesis was scoffed at as a fringe science. This mindset plagued the field from the get-go in the 1880s, when the botanist Andreas Franz Wilhem Schimper first put forth the idea that eukaryotic organelles might be bacterial, to the turn of the century, which saw the first key paper on symbiogenesis... Read more →

Posted on May 29, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Symbioses | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mycorrhizae and Land Plants – An Update

by Roberto  
I am fortunate that among the first impressions of my day, I take in this view of land plants. Given my proclivity for microbiology my mind inevitably wonders to what I cannot see, the underground network of filamentous fungi connecting the roots of those plants, the mycorrhizae. Read more →

Posted on May 11, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Evolution, Fungi, Symbioses | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Chemical Ecology of Colibactin

by Roberto   
Microbial genotoxic compounds – molecules that damage DNA – are found aplenty in nature. Doxorubicin and bleomycin come to mind; powerful DNA damaging agents developed as anti-cancer therapeutics but whose extreme toxicity is part of what makes some cancer chemotherapies arduous and risky. Read more →

Posted on May 08, 2023 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures Considered #59: Inside a Choanoflagellate

by Roberto  
Choanoflagellates (endearingly referred to as "choanos") are the closest living relative of animals and as such they can provide insights into the evolution of animal multicellularity. Interestingly, at least two choano developmental features are induced by bacterial products. Read more →

Posted on May 04, 2023 at 01:31 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Pictures Considered | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gene Transfer in the Ocean

by Mechas  
When it comes to generating variability in genes and functions, microbes are at the top of the list. Much of their genome plasticity and capacity to adapt to changing environments is driven by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the acquisition of genetic information from other cells rather than from vertical inheritance upon division. Read more →

Posted on May 01, 2023 at 12:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the Source of the Black Death

by Roberto  
Yersinia pestis. How immediate our reaction can be to the species name of this bacterium, making us conjure up images of pestilence. As its discoverer, Alexander Yersin, wrote in 1894 of an outbreak of bubonic plague in Hong Kong, this is the "bacille de la peste." (Working independently, Kitasato Shibasaburo also characterized the plague bacterium at nearly the exact same time.) Read more →

Posted on February 13, 2023 at 12:30 AM in Evolution, Pathogens | Permalink | Comments (0)

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