Small Things Considered

Limiting Manganese to Reduce Enterococcus faecalis Virulence

by Madeline Beaulieu | With the reported rise in antibiotic-resistant pathogens, it remains important to study the basic biology of these organisms to uncover what makes them so durable. Why do they survive so well in certain environments, and how might we effectively interfere with that? Read more →

Outer Membrane Vesicles and Biopearling – A Snippet

by Elio | When I started out in microbiology some 70 years ago, bacte­ria were just little balls or sausage-shaped rods, and, if you were of a fancy mindset, corkscrew-like structures. Some were endowed with flagella or capsules, but not much else. Their surface area was limited to what you could see under an optical microscope. Read more →

Of Terms in Biology: Acetogenesis

By Roberto and Elio | If you are not deeply steeped in microbial metabolism terminology, your first guess at the meaning of acetogenesis might be simply the production of acetate. Is vinegar production, the oxidation of ethanol to acetate by acetic acid bacteria, an example of acetogenesis? Not quite... Read more →

Space-tolerant Micronauts

by Alise Muok and Ariane Briegel
Try to imagine a crea­ture that can sur­vive from the heat of 150°C (300°F) to the cold of –270°C (–454°F), in the ab­sence of oxy­gen, af­ter com­plete de­hy­dra­tion, at 1,000× at­mo­sphe­ric pres­sure, and af­ter the ra­di­a­tion and va­cuum of space. Who might such space travelers be? Read more →

A Vertical Symbiont Keeps Its Chromosome Oriented Towards The Host

by Philipp Weber | Have you ever heard of 'Can­di­da­tus Thio­sym­bion onei­sti' It is a rod-sha­ped bac­te­ri­um that at­ta­ches, via one of its pol­es, to the cu­ticle of a ma­rine ne­ma­to­de. Onei­sti is com­mit­ted to have each daugh­ter cell in con­stant and in­ti­mate con­tact with its host. To ac­comp­lish this, it can­not simple elon­gate along... Read more →

A Shuttle Service for Phosphate

by Christoph | It's amazing, again and again, to see elec­tron mi­cro­scop­ic ima­ges of or­der­ly chains of elec­tron-dense, mem­bra­ne-en­closed mag­ne­ti­te crys­tals with­in bac­te­ri­al cells that turn their car­riers in­to ti­ny com­pass need­les. So, it's no sur­prise that here at STC, Elio, Gem­ma, and Da­niel had been at­trac­ted by mag­ne­to­tac­tic bac­te­ria (MTBs) ear­lier. Now we team­ed up with Vi­vien­ne Bail­lie Ger­rit­sen from Pro­tein Spot­light,... Read more →

How Do Tardigrades Withstand Drying?

by Elio | Recently, tardigrades or wa­ter bears made the news be­cause they had been loa­ded on a space cap­sule hea­ded for the moon. Alas, the space­craft crashed on its way down and the fate of the ti­ny pas­sen­gers is un­known. This gives us a rea­son for re­vi­si­ting these fas­ci­na­ting crea­tures and to bring the topic up to date. Read more →

Strictly Intracellular Parasite No More

by Elio | We learn with mother's milk (or at least in a beginning micro­bio­logy course) that certain bacteria, notably rickettsiae, chlamydiae, and anaplasmas, cannot grow outside of host cells. Thus, they are de­fined as being strictly intracellular parasites. Ha! A member of the ric­kettsiae has now been found to grow freely outside of host cells. Read more →

Making Memories with Pseudomonas aeruginosa

by Jade Thurnham | As an opportunistic pathogen, Pseudomonas aeru­ginosa lurks in wait of the perfect moment to make its move and be­come infectious in its host. Since it is so flexible in its choice of dwellings, P. aeruginosa is highly adaptive in its ability to couch surf among a wide range of hosts. But how does such an adaptation work and why is P. aeruginosa so good at it?  Read more →

A Wormful of Bugs, Again...

by Christoph | When you've followed our posts on symbioses between ani­mals and bac­te­ria over the last two years or so, you could have ea­si­ly got the im­pres­sion that they oc­cur main­ly be­tween in­sects and Gamma­pro­teo­bac­te­ria from the or­der En­te­ro­bac­te­ra­les of this large and di­verse phy­lum. This im­pression would be skewed but only because our choice of topics was! Read more →