Small Things Considered

E. coli aficionados, do your strains have the wild-type rpoS gene?

by Roberto  
For many of you, the rpoS allele in your E. coli strains might not matter. But if you are interested in the general stress response or adaptations to stationary phase, you might want to know if you are starting out with a wild-type rpoS gene. Read more →

Stops Making Sense

by Christoph  
One of the most con­vinc­ing ar­guments for a com­mon ori­gin of all known life forms on this pla­net is that they all use the same ge­net­ic code. In my un­der­stand­ing, the ar­gu­ment is strength­en­ed, per­haps some­what coun­te‑­in­tuiti­ve­ly, by the nu­mer­ous find­ings that and how ma­ny life forms mo­di­fy the ca­no­ni­cal ge­net­ic code in ways that suit them... Read more →

A miniature piñata

by Christoph  
Can you imagine a chil­dren's par­ty in Me­xi­co with­out a piñata as the main at­trac­tion? One of the kids hits the sus­pend­ed piñata with a stick un­til it bursts and the en­tire con­tents, usu­al­ly sweets, splat­ters on­to those stand­ing around wait­ing ex­pec­tant­ly. Micro­bio­lo­gists sometimes throw a party, too, though... Read more →

Pictures Considered #61: how FtsZ-rings get shoveled to midcell in vitro

by Christoph  
The last thirty years have been an "eye-open­ing" jour­ney for mi­cro­bial cell bio­logists, quite li­ter­al­ly. I am, of course, talk­ing about fluores­cent la­bel­ing of in­di­vi­dual cell com­ponents and the non‑invasive ob­ser­va­tion of their "be­havior" in liv­ing bac­ter­ial cells. Just re­cent­ly, I con­sider­ed a vi­deo clip about Vibrio cho­lerae har­poon­ing DNA. Now again a video clip, about... Read more →

The Hitchhiker's Guide to... Flagellar Tips

by Christoph  
The same frontispiece twice within a few days at STC? No, not quite. It's not about Roberto's hitchhiking phage this time, or the flagellated bacterium, or the hitchhiking spore, but about the tip of the flagellum (black, left). Disclosure: already back in 2020, I talked with Alise, who created the image, and three other passionate science illustrators... Read more →

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 →

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 →

What is a Biomarker? A Snippet

by Elio
Most likely, we have all run into the term "bio­mar­ker," no? So, what is a bio­mar­ker? In 1998, the NIH Bio­mar­kers De­fi­ni­tions Work­ing Group de­fined a bio­mar­ker as "a cha­rac­ter­is­tic that is ob­ject­ive­ly mea­sured and eval­uat­ed as an in­di­ca­tor of nor­mal bio­lo­gi­cal pro­cesses,... Read more →

Sensing Blue Light: From Bacteria to Birds

by Mechas  
That many birds migrate over long distances is a well-known fact. But reading the book "World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds" by Scott Weidensaul proved to be a true eye-opener. I also learned a fact that really stuck with me. Read more →

A two-part resurrection tale (2|2)

by Christoph  
In continuation of the first part of the tale: what is the "re­sur­rec­tion" in the title about? A bit of nos­tal­gia, as I will "re­sur­rect" a sto­ry that is based on re­search from ~30 years ago (and to­day main­ly known by de­di­cat­ed plas­mid spe­cial­ists, if at all). A simple but vex­ing quest­ion bothered... Read more →