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Almost one-quarter of the calories consumed by the global human population is derived from rice. Epidemics of rice blast disease, which are caused by the filamentous fungusMagnaporthe oryzae, therefore represent a major threat to global food stocks. This Review discusses how functional genomic approaches are shedding light on the mechanisms used by M. oryzaeduring plant infection.
It is not easy to study how microbial communities function. Microbial community proteogenomics, which integrates genomics, ecology, biological mass spectrometry and informatics, could help us to unravel the physiology, ecology and evolution of microbial populations and communities.
Considerable advances have been made in the field of outer membrane protein biogenesis during the past year. The β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) mediates efficient insertion of folded β-barrels into the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. The role of the BAM in the folding of membrane proteins is discussed in this Review.
Formation of disulphide bonds between cysteine residues is key for the stability and activity of a range of exported bacterial proteins. Disulphide bond formation occurs during the oxidative protein folding processes that are catalysed by the DSB protein family. In this article, Heras and colleagues review oxidative folding pathways inEscherichia coliK12 and other bacteria and their impact on pathogenesis.
The outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) between 2002 and 2004 killed hundreds of people. Vaccines against the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) could protect the population during future outbreaks. In this Review, Shibo Jiang and colleagues describe such vaccines, as well as other therapeutics, based on the SARS-CoV spike protein.
How some organisms can withstand extreme levels of radiation has been a long-standing question. In this Opinion article, Michael Daly makes the case that high levels of intracellular manganese complexes allow the cell to repair itself by preventing protein oxidation caused by iron-dependent reactive oxygen species during irradiation.
Our understanding of the relationship between molecular properties of antimicrobial peptides and macroscopic effects on bacterial membranes remains limited. In this Opinion, Castanho and colleagues propose that even under physiological conditions, millimolar local peptide concentrations can be reached at the membrane, which enables the minimum inhibitory concentration to be related to peptide concentration thresholds for bacterial membrane disruption.
