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The endothelium lining blood and lymphatic vessels is a major target for pathogenic bacteria. In this Review, Emmanuel Lemichez and colleagues describe how bacteria and bacterial toxins interact with endothelial cells and modify cellular pathways, thereby altering inflammatory responses and the barrier function of the endothelium.
Although small-animal models have been very useful for the investigation of diseases, disease transmission is difficult to study in these models. Lanzas and colleagues describe how farm animals can be used to study transmission of diseases and how they allow for the design of transmission models.
The Shiga toxins are a family of exotoxins that are produced byShigella dysenteriae and enterohaemorrhagic strains of Escherichia coli. In this Review, Johannes and Römer summarize the structural and cellular biology of Shiga toxins, describe the role of apoptosis during intoxication and discuss how Shiga toxins might be exploited as therapeutics.
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.
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.
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.
Pneumonia kills more children under 5 years of age than any other infectious disease, but affordable and effective treatment and prevention measures are available. The time has come for the world to wake up to this forgotten killer.
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.
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.
