Featured
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Research Highlights |
Movies of the body's bacteria
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News |
German E. coli outbreak caused by previously unknown strain
Genome sequence gives clues to microbe's sticking power.
- Marian Turner
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News |
Will you take the 'arsenic-life' test?
Critiques prompt researchers to offer samples of poison-tolerant microbe to doubters.
- Erika Check Hayden
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Article |
Crystal structure of the FimD usher bound to its cognate FimC–FimH substrate
- Gilles Phan
- , Han Remaut
- & Gabriel Waksman
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News |
Critics weigh in on arsenic life
Field needs independent experiments to prove or disprove the work, researchers say.
- Erika Check Hayden
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Research Highlights |
Bacterial chemical factories
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Letter |
Detection of prokaryotic mRNA signifies microbial viability and promotes immunity
- Leif E. Sander
- , Michael J. Davis
- & J. Magarian Blander
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Research Highlights |
Starved cells turn on themselves
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Letter |
Preserving the membrane barrier for small molecules during bacterial protein translocation
- Eunyong Park
- & Tom A. Rapoport
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Letter |
Metabolite-enabled eradication of bacterial persisters by aminoglycosides
- Kyle R. Allison
- , Mark P. Brynildsen
- & James J. Collins
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Letter |
Novel pathway for assimilation of dimethylsulphoniopropionate widespread in marine bacteria
- Chris R. Reisch
- , Melissa J. Stoudemayer
- & William B. Whitman
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Letter |
TLR signalling augments macrophage bactericidal activity through mitochondrial ROS
- A. Phillip West
- , Igor E. Brodsky
- & Sankar Ghosh
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News & Views |
Innate immunity cues virulence
Salmonella intestinal pathogens employ a clever trick. They use the immune response that their host triggers to destroy them to enhance the expression of genes that mediate the pathogens' virulence.
- Michelle M. C. Buckner
- & B. Brett Finlay
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News |
Antibiotic resistance shows up in India's drinking water
Discovery of NDM-1 outside hospital environment raises alarm.
- Naomi Lubick
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Article |
Crystal structure of a phosphorylation-coupled saccharide transporter
- Yu Cao
- , Xiangshu Jin
- & Ming Zhou
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Article |
Streptococcal M1 protein constructs a pathological host fibrinogen network
The streptococcal M1 protein can cause vascular leakage and tissue injury and these pathologies are dependent on its interaction with host fibrinogen and subsequent activation of neutrophils. This study presents the structural basis for this process.
- Pauline Macheboeuf
- , Cosmo Buffalo
- & Partho Ghosh
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News |
Antarctic microbes live life to the extreme
Chilean Antarctic survey finds dramatic variety of organisms adapted to unusual conditions.
- Patricio Segura Ortiz
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Article |
CRISPR RNA maturation by trans-encoded small RNA and host factor RNase III
CRISPR is a microbial RNA-based immune system protecting against viral and plasmid invasions. The CRISPR system is thought to rely on cleavage of a precursor RNA transcript by Cas endonucleases, but not all species possessing CRISPR-type immunity encode Cas proteins. This study now describes an alternative pathway in Streptococcus pyogenes that employs trans-encoded small RNA that directs the processing of precursor RNA into crRNAs through endogenous RNase III and the CRISPR-associated Csn1 protein.
- Elitza Deltcheva
- , Krzysztof Chylinski
- & Emmanuelle Charpentier
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News |
Marine microbes digest plastic
A 'little world' eating ocean garbage might be a mixed blessing.
- Gwyneth Dickey Zaikab
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Research Highlights |
Stopping the cellular pump
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Research Highlights |
New proteins from neighbours
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Research Highlights |
Tagging the TB bacterium
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Letter |
Co-directional replication–transcription conflicts lead to replication restart
As the rates of replication and transcription are different, the machineries that carry out these processes are bound to clash on DNA. In contrast to results from head-on collisions, co-directional encounters have been shown to have mild effects in vitro, requiring no additional replication restart factors. It is now shown that in bacterial cells, both types of events require the activities of restart proteins to resume replication when a transcription complex is encountered.
- Houra Merrikh
- , Cristina Machón
- & Panos Soultanas
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Letter |
Crystal structure of the CusBA heavy-metal efflux complex of Escherichia coli
Gram-negative bacteria expel toxic chemicals via tripartite efflux pumps spanning both the inner and outer membranes. A crystallographic model of this tripartite efflux complex has been unavailable because co-crystallization of different components of the system has proven to be extremely difficult. The X-ray crystal structure of CusA of the CusCBA tripartite efflux system from Escherichia coli has been reported previously, and here the X-ray crystal structure of the CusBA co-complex is reported. The structure reveals that the trimeric CusA efflux pump interacts with six CusB protein molecules at the upper half of the periplasmic domain, and the predicted structure of the trimeric CusC channel was used to develop a model of for the tripartite efflux complex.
- Chih-Chia Su
- , Feng Long
- & Edward W. Yu
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News |
Dumped drugs lead to resistant microbes
A continual discharge of antibiotic-contaminated water has created a hotspot of bacterial antibiotic resistance in an Indian river.
- Naomi Lubick
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News |
Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools
Opponents fear that experiments will 'trivialize' genetic modification.
- Barbara Casassus
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Letter |
Bifidobacteria can protect from enteropathogenic infection through production of acetate
Bifidobacteria are natural inhabitants of the human gut and are known to provide protection from infection. It is now shown that certain features of bifidobacterial metabolism that ultimately lead to the production of acetate are involved in this effect.
- Shinji Fukuda
- , Hidehiro Toh
- & Hiroshi Ohno
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News & Views |
Farming writ small
Social slime moulds graze on bacteria, but save some for transmission in their spores. Strains practising this primitive form of farming coexist with non-farmer strains in an intriguing cost–benefit equilibrium. See Letter p.393
- Jacobus J. Boomsma
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News & Views |
Peptide gets in shape for self-defence
The transformation of tadpole to frog and of caterpillar to butterfly are two of the more obvious examples of metamorphosis. But molecular shape-shifting may occur in each of us as part of our innate antibacterial defence system. See Letter p.419
- Robert I. Lehrer
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News |
Cholera vaccine plan splits experts
Opinion is divided over how to tackle the disease in Haiti.
- David Cyranoski
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Letter |
The assembly of a GTPase–kinase signalling complex by a bacterial catalytic scaffold
Pathogenic Escherichia coli translocate many proteins into the host cell to promote virulence. It is now shown that one of these proteins, EspG, which is present in enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, interferes with the host signalling network.
- Andrey S. Selyunin
- , Sarah E. Sutton
- & Neal M. Alto
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Q&A |
Turning point: Francesca Malfatti
Francesca Malfatti explains how she helped find an unexpected relationship between microbes.
- Virginia Gewin
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News |
Hydrogen production comes naturally to ocean microbe
Cyanobacterium gives off hydrogen as by-product of day-to-day processes.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Research Highlights |
Microbiology: Bacteria that thrive on arsenic
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Research Highlights |
Materials science: Antiseptic silver slivers
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News |
Microbe gets toxic response
Researchers question the science behind last week's revelation of arsenic-based life.
- Alla Katsnelson
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News |
Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life
Oddball bacterium can survive without one of biology's essential building blocks.
- Alla Katsnelson
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Letter |
Crystal structure of bacterial RNA polymerase bound with a transcription inhibitor protein
A crystal structure of bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) bound to the transcription inhibitor Gfh1 reveals the mechanism of inhibition by Gfh1 and an alternative ratcheted state of RNAP.
- Shunsuke Tagami
- , Shun-ichi Sekine
- & Shigeyuki Yokoyama
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Letter |
A widespread family of polymorphic contact-dependent toxin delivery systems in bacteria
Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) through a two-component system was first described in Escherichia coli as a mechanism to inhibit growth of bacterial cells that do not possess this system. Now the widespread occurrence of CDI in bacteria and the molecular basis for some of these interactions have been elucidated. The data suggest that CDI is a common mechanism by which microbes compete with each other in the environment.
- Stephanie K. Aoki
- , Elie J. Diner
- & David A. Low
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Letter |
Interdependence of behavioural variability and response to small stimuli in bacteria
In his study of Brownian motion, Einstein realized that the same random molecular movements characterizing a substance at rest should affect, for example, the drag it opposes to a particle pushed through it. This was later generalized as the fluctuation–response theorem (FRT), but whether and how it may apply to biological systems, which operate far from equilibrium, has remained an open question. Based on the unmatched fine-scale measurements possible in the study of bacterial chemotaxis, it is now revealed that the FRT does apply in this case, and ways to dissect which features in the biochemical network couple its internal states with its responses to external stimuli are suggested.
- Heungwon Park
- , William Pontius
- & Philippe Cluzel
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Article |
Structure of a bacterial ribonuclease P holoenzyme in complex with tRNA
tRNAs are synthesized in a premature form that requires trimming of the 5′ and 3′ ends and modification of specific nucleotides. RNase P, a complex containing a long catalytic RNA and a protein cofactor, catalyses the cleavage that generates the mature 5′ end. Here, the structure of RNase P bound to mature tRNAPhe is solved. Recognition of the leader sequence and its mechanism of cleavage is determined by soaking an oligonucleotide corresponding to the premature 5′ end into the crystal.
- Nicholas J. Reiter
- , Amy Osterman
- & Alfonso Mondragón
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News Feature |
Genomics: DNA's master craftsmen
Behind the walls of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Ham Smith and Clyde Hutchison quietly worked to bring a synthetic cell to life.
- Roberta Kwok
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Article |
The CRISPR/Cas bacterial immune system cleaves bacteriophage and plasmid DNA
CRISPR/Cas is a microbial immune system that is known to protect bacteria from virus infection. These authors show that the Streptococcus thermophilus CRISPR/Cas system can prevent both plasmid carriage and phage infection through cleavage of invading double-stranded DNA.
- Josiane E. Garneau
- , Marie-Ève Dupuis
- & Sylvain Moineau
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News |
Bacteria can drive the evolution of new species
Symbiotic organisms influence fruitfly mate choice.
- Joseph Milton
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Research Highlights |
Synthetic biology: Bacterial cyborg transmits electrons
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News & Views |
A peep through anion channels
The crystal structure of a protein channel provides clues about the mechanisms that control the closure of pores found in the epidermis of plant leaves. Excitingly, the protein channel folds in a way never seen before. See Article p.1074
- Sébastien Thomine
- & Hélène Barbier-Brygoo
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News |
Verbal autopsy methods questioned
Controversy flares over malaria mortality levels in India.
- Declan Butler
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Research Highlights |
Microbiology: Salmonella gets help from host
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