Table of contents
In This Issue
p1 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1335
Editorial: Bacteria not welcome at the MRC?
p2 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1332
Research Highlights
Viral pathogenesis: Live and let live
p3 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1330
Anti-infectives: Effective protection
p4 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1328
Virology: Promoting silence
p4 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1336
Techniques and applications: Biofilms: you do the maths!
p4 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1338
In brief
Virology | Techniques & applications | Bacterial transcription
p5 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1334
Bacterial pathogenesis: Shaping a hummingbird...
p6 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1337
Bacterial pathogenesis: Pulling the Yersinia needle from the haystack
p6 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1339
Parasitology: Avoiding attraction
p7 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1329
News and Analysis
Disease watch
Keeping abreast of scrapie | Malaria interactome stands alone | Activated CD4 T cells harbour HIV | Polio cases rise and fall | The common cold — chilling truths | Bats might be Ebola reservoir | Pop goes the schistosome! | Some more malaria news | Avian influenza update | World AIDS Day | Outbreak news
p8 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1331
Reviews
Meningococcal genome dynamics
Tonje Davidsen & Tone Tønjum
p11 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1324
To evade the immune system, the meningococcus generates genetic variants and balances this genome instability with genome repair. Tonje Davidsen and Tone Tønjum review the dynamics of the meningococcal genome and contrast its unique DNA-repair profile with that of the model organism Escherichia coli.
Hendra and Nipah viruses: different and dangerous
Bryan T. Eaton, Christopher C. Broder, Deborah Middleton & Lin-Fa Wang
p23 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1323
The highly virulent paramyxoviruses Hendra and Nipah virus are recent additions to the gamut of emerging human pathogens. Bryan Eaton and colleagues provide an overview of these pathogens and discuss recent progress in the understanding of the molecular basis for henipavirus pathogenicity.
Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in the community setting
E. Yoko Furuya & Franklin D. Lowy
p36 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1325
The prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms in the community is steadily increasing. Yoko Furuya and Franklin Lowy discuss the unique mixture of factors that contribute to the evolution of antibiotic resistance in the community setting. The complicated nature of antimicrobial resistance requires a multi-pronged combative approach.
Article series: Food Microbiology
Modelling strategies for the industrial exploitation of lactic acid bacteria
Bas Teusink & Eddy J. Smid
p46 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1319
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are extensively used in the food and chemical industries. Here, Bas Teusink and Eddy Smid discuss how global metabolic modelling approaches, encompassing metabolic engineering, functional genomics and mathematical analysis, can be applied to optimize the industrial applications of LAB.
Advances in understanding bacterial outer-membrane biogenesis
Natividad Ruiz, Daniel Kahne & Thomas J. Silhavy
p57 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1322
Recently, several proteins involved in lipopolysaccharide and Gram-negative bacterial outer-membrane assembly have been identified. Natividad Ruiz, Daniel Kahne and Thomas Silhavy describe these assembly factors and outline the novel experimental approaches that led to their discovery.
Virus membrane-fusion proteins: more than one way to make a hairpin
Margaret Kielian & Félix A. Rey
p67 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1326
Despite markedly different structures, both class I and class II viral membrane-fusion proteins adopt a hairpin conformation, inducing fusion of viral and cellular membranes. This review focuses on the class II proteins, using Semliki Forest virus and tick-borne encephalitis virus fusion proteins as examples.
Perspective
Science and society
The poetry of science
Anne Osbourn
p77 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1321
When Anne Osbourn left her post as a plant biologist to take up a Dream Time Fellowship in the School of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, she was charged with the task of bringing science into daily lives and language through creative writing. Surprisingly, Anne turned not to prose, but to poetry. In this essay, she describes her sabbatical from science, which saw her establish the Science, Art and Writing (SAW) concept — an initiative that draws children to science using scientific images as inspiration for creative writing and art.