Volume 8 Issue 3, March 2010

In the year in which the GAVI Alliance celebrates its tenth anniversary, Bill and Melinda Gates have pledged US$10 billion in new funding. Judging from past successes, this is great news for millions of children.

Experimental evolution of symbiotic behaviour in the root-infecting pathogenRalstonia solanacearum.

MicroRNAs regulate KSHV latency through different mechanisms.

Escherichia colican be rationally engineered to produce structurally tailored fatty acids and their derivatives from simple sugars and plant-derived biomass.

A recent discovery shows that Archaea have a protein conjugation system similar to eukaryotic ubiquitylation.

Two papers inEukaryotic Cell show that nucleosomes are depleted at active variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) gene expression sites.

This month's Genome Watch discusses how alternative approaches to using second-generation sequencing technologies are powerful tools for the analysis of common pathogenic bacteria.

Our monthly round up of infectious diseases news, which this month includes recent findings in malaria research and news of a large donation for vaccine research and distribution.

DNA replication is an essential process that requires very careful regulation. Tsutomu Katayama and colleagues describe the many ways in which the initiation of chromosomal DNA replication is controlled, with a particular focus on the regulation of DnaA.

Interactions between host cell receptors and the surface molecules of bacteria are important determinants of the nature of the relationship between the two organisms. In this Review, Lebeer, Vanderleyden and De Keersmaecker examine the signalling interactions of probiotic bacterial cell surface molecules.

Nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) bind to the bacterial chromosome and alter its dynamics, maintaining nucleoid structure. In this Review, Dillon and Dorman examine the range of proteins in the ever-growing NAP family and their contributions to the regulation of nucleoid structure and gene expression.

Many organisms switch antigens to avoid recognition by the immune system. Here, Jennings and colleagues describe the phasevarion, a set of genes regulated by phase-variable type III restriction–modification systems. Variation through this system probably plays an important part in the pathogenicity of a range of bacterial species.

Denamur and colleagues review the population structure of commensalEscherichia coliand discuss how commensal strains can adapt to different niches and how commensalism can evolve into pathogenicity.

Transmission of symbionts from one host generation to the next can occur horizontally from the environment or vertically through the host germ line. In this Review, Bright and Bulgheresi detail the molecular mechanisms governing the transmission of a range of symbionts and discuss how transmission mode can shape the evolution of the symbiotic partners.

Noroviruses are the most common cause of food-borne gastroenteritis worldwide; however, the development of effective vaccines and antiviral therapies has proved to be challenging. In this Review, Baric and colleagues discuss the molecular and structural mechanisms underlying the persistence of noroviruses in human populations.