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Volume 6 Issue 4, April 2008

In This Issue

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Editorial

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Research Highlight

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In Brief

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Research Highlight

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Genome Watch

  • This month's Genome Watch considers the features of the latest streptococcal genomes in light of a common problem — cloning bias.

    • Stephen Bentley
    Genome Watch
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Disease Watch

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Review Article

  • The successful replication of mammalian DNA viruses requires that they gain control of key cellular signalling pathways, including the phosphatidylinositol 3′-kinase–Akt–mammalian target of rapamycin (PI3K–Akt–mTOR) pathway. This Review discusses the range of mechanisms that mammalian DNA viruses use to activate this pathway, as well as the multiple mechanisms these viruses have evolved to circumvent inhibitory stress signalling.

    • Nicholas J. Buchkovich
    • Yongjun Yu
    • James C. Alwine
    Review Article
  • Carbohydrate-based polymers are constituents of the cell envelopes of many Gram-positive bacteria. These cell-wall glycopolymers often have highly variable structures and, although their functions are not completely known, recent research has begun to reveal that they have crucial roles in both protecting and maintaining the bacterial cell envelope and in bacteria–host interactions.

    • Christopher Weidenmaier
    • Andreas Peschel
    Review Article
  • Interactions between insects and microorganisms are important in insect disease, dissemination of pathogens to animals and plants, and as models for host–pathogen interactions. Here, the interactions between bacteria and insects, and the strategies that both use to influence these interactions, are reviewed.

    • Isabelle Vallet-Gely
    • Bruno Lemaitre
    • Frédéric Boccard
    Review Article
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Opinion

  • In this Opinion article, the authors consider the classification of viruses, and propose a new classification system that divides all biological entities into two groups of organisms: ribosome-encoding organisms (eukaryotes, archaea and bacteria) and capsid-encoding organisms (viruses). Unclassified selfish nucleic acids are grouped as 'orphan replicons'.

    • Didier Raoult
    • Patrick Forterre
    Opinion
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Timeline

  • Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria, which combine ammonium and nitrite or nitrate to form nitrogen gas, were discovered in the early 1990s. Here, Gijs Kuenen recalls the discovery of these bacteria and the subsequent elucidation of their roles in environmental and industrial microbiology.

    • J. Gijs Kuenen
    Timeline
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