Small Things Considered

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 →

A Case for Colors

by Lizah van der Aart | Last year, Gilles van Wezel and Chang­sheng Wu an­noun­ced the dis­co­ve­ry of a com­pound with a com­ple­te­ly no­vel che­mi­cal back­bone, Lug­du­no­my­cin. This is an ex­cep­tio­nal feat as we hard­ly find com­pounds with com­ple­te­ly no­vel che­mi­cal struc­tures. This is even more in­cre­dible if you con­si­der how it was found. Bac­te­ria don't always... Read more →

The Complex Anatomy and Physiology of the Gut of Wood-feeding Beetles. A Snippet.

by Elio | The digestive system of animals can be wondrously complex. Think of our own, which consists of such diverse organs as the mouth, the esophagus, stomach, the small and large intestines, and the anus. Each one is responsible for a particular set of functions. Is such a division of labor also seen in "simpler" animals? This question was asked recently of wood-feeding beetles by a group of no less than 18 investigators from all over the US. Read more →

Another Cell Bites the Dust

by Janie | Almost a century ago, Walther Goebl and Oswald Avery observed that Streptococcus pneumoniae cells lysed upon entering stationary phase, but the mechanism behind this autolysis remained elusive. Read more →

...et respice finem (3' –OH)

by Christoph | Worry not, this is no lengthy con­tem­pla­tion on the use of clas­si­cal La­tin in sci­en­ti­fic lang­uage. It's a not-so-short piece to em­pha­size that it makes sense to mark the ends of non-bran­ched poly­mers like DNA and RNA, and there­by de­fine their che­mi­cal di­rec­tio­na­li­ty. Bio­in­for­ma­ti­cians who rou­tine­ly work with DNA and RNA in fasta... Read more →