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Structures of RNA polymerase enzymes have advanced our understanding of transcription initiation in all kingdoms of life. This Review discusses bacterial promoter structure, recent advances in our understanding of the successive promoter–RNA polymerase complexes that contribute to the kinetics of transcription initiation and unconventional regulators that target RNA polymerase, but not DNA, for the control of transcription initiation in bacteria.
In the first of a series of articles that focus on systems biology in microorganisms, Douglas Young and colleagues describe how systems biology provides a new and integrative tool that can be used to probe host–pathogen interactions during persistent infection, usingMycobacterium tuberculosisas an example.
Oncolytic viruses can be reprogrammed into vectors for use in cancer therapy by combining three types of modification: targeting, arming and shielding. Roberto Cattaneo and colleagues discuss the principles of virus reprogramming using adenovirus, a DNA virus with a naked icosahedral capsid, and measles virus, an enveloped RNA virus with a helical capsid, as the main examples.
In recent years, the interactions between viruses and cellular metabolism have become a topic of great interest. Viral infections that disrupt liver function can be accompanied by changes in iron homeostasis, and iron loading of the liver can exacerbate chronic viral disease. Here, Hal Drakesmith and Andrew Prentice consider some examples of how viruses such as HIV-1, hepatitis C virus and arenaviruses manipulate cellular iron metabolism.
The Ibis T5000 couples nucleic acid amplification to high-performance electrospray mass spectrometry and base-composition analysis and enables the identification and quantification of all known bacteria, all major groups of pathogenic fungi and the major families of viruses that cause disease in humans and animals. Here, Ecker and colleagues describe this new technology.
Using examples from the Cuatro Ciénegas basin in Mexico, Souzaet al. argue that the occurrence of strong ecosystem nutrient limitation, especially by phosphorus, encourages local microbial endemism because it reduces horizontal gene transfer among locally adapting microbial lineages.
