Volume 8 Issue 1, January 2010

Disease eradication programmes are often slower than expected. Several local and regional eradication programmes had targets for 2010, but progress towards these goals has been variable.

Commensal staphylococci on the skin have a beneficial role in limiting the activation of potentially harmful inflammation in response to injury.

The subcellular localization of a bacterial effector determines its specificity.

TheBacillus subtilisDNA translocases SpoIIIE and SftA have different but complementary roles at different points in the division cycle.

Two studies characterize the previously unknown cowpox virus protein CPXV12, which, along with CPXV203, mediates immune evasion.

Marine viruses produce a glycosphingolipid that triggers programmed cell death in phytoplankton blooms.

The N-tail regions of NarG and BisC contain remnant Tat signal peptides that can be reactivated into functional Tat export signals.

Our monthly round-up of infectious diseases news, which this month includes a new model forEntamoeba histolyticainfection and the effects of globalization on pathogen emergence and evolution.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria is a potent activator of the innate immune response. Clare Bryant and colleagues discuss recent exciting data that have revealed the structural basis of the recognition of LPS by the Toll-like receptor 4–MD2 complex.

In the diverse microbial communities that are found in most natural environments, bacteria compete with their neighbours for space and resources. Here, the authors review the many active mechanisms that bacteria use to kill or impair their intra- and interspecies competitors.

EightEscherichia colipathovars have been well characterized to date. In this Review Matthew Croxen and Brett Finlay discuss recent advances in our understanding of the virulence of these pathovars that cause diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide annually.

In this Review, Flores and Herrero describe how some cyanobacteria form multicellular filaments containing cells that are differentiated to carry out specialized functions. This compartmentalization allows the bacteria to overcome the problems that are associated with incompatible metabolic functions such as oxygenic photosynthesis and N₂fixation.

Rabies virus is a neurotropic virus that travels between neurons to reach the brain. Schnell and colleagues describe the viral life cycle, from entry into the cell to budding of new virions and spread to neighbouring cells, and explain how it interferes with the host immune response.

Recombinant viruses can act as vaccine vectors by mediating the delivery of antigens from other infectious agents to a host. In this Review, Draper and Heeney describe how a better understanding of the relationship between viruses and the immune system has benefited the use of such viral vectors in a range of human and veterinary applications.

A range of techniques can be used for the identification and classification of bacteria. However, traditional biochemical and sequence-based approaches can be labour-intensive and slow. In this Review, Sauer and Kliem discuss the advantages of mass spectrometry-based procedures for fast and efficient bacterial identification.