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Crude-oil spills pose particular environmental challenges, and we have only recently begun to garner information on microbial involvement in hydrocarbon degradation in marine environments. Here, the bacteria involved, their environmental distribution and dynamics, and the positive and negative effects of environmental conditions and interactions with other organisms are explored.
The authors review the fundamental roles of N6-methyl-adenine in bacteria. In γ-proteobacteria, Dam methylation facilitates DNA–protein interactions involved in chromosome segregation, mismatch repair, transposition, and the epigenetic control of gene expression. In α-proteobacteria, the CcrM methylase is an important cell-cycle regulator.
Given the increasing problems posed by antibiotic resistance, there is keen interest in alternative strategies. Here, James Paton and colleagues review recent progress made in one such alternative strategy — creating recombinant receptor-mimic probiotics for the treatment and prevention of enteric infections.
For some prion diseases, accumulation of the disease agent in lymphoid tissues is required for efficient delivery of the agent to the central nervous system. Here, Mabbott and MacPherson discuss the cellular components and mechanisms involved before, during and after this accumulation.
Schmitt and Breinig review the biology of virus-carrying killer yeasts, which produce secreted toxins with antimycotic activity. Viral toxin protein generation, intracellular processing and modes of action are described. The authors present a model explaining how killer yeast strains remain immune to their lethal cargo.
Amy Gladfelter discusses our current knowledge of the functions and regulation of the septins and formins in filamentous fungi, and makes the case that a concerted research effort on these proteins in these organisms could yield significant insights into fundamental eukaryotic cellular processes.
In this Opinion article, Carlos Buscaglia and colleagues discussTrypanosoma cruzi mucins and the intriguing possibility that the heterogeneity of the mucin core polypeptides in the mammal-dwelling stages of the T. cruzilife cycle might be an immune-evasion mechanism.