Latest Articles Include:
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- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):223 (2011)
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- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):224 (2011)
- Host adaptation: For your gut only | PDF (125 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):225 (2011)
Although the gut microbiota varies markedly between different vertebrates, some bacterial species are found in various hosts. Frese and colleagues, writing in PLoS Genetics, have identified bacterial factors that allow Lactobacillus reuteri to colonize a particular host, providing insight into the process of bacterial colonization in gut ecosystems. - Techniques and applications: How many sweets in the jar? | PDF (176 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):226 (2011)
Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with oligonucleotide probes for 16S ribosomal RNA allows for the taxonomic identification and visualization of microorganisms in situ. However, technical problems have limited the number of fluorophores that can be distinguished simultaneously, resulting in the ability to identify only one or two types of microorganism at a time in a given experiment. - Bacterial pathogenesis: Neisseria meningitidis: hit and run | PDF (166 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):226 (2011)
The pathogen Neisseria meningitidis initially proliferates on the host cell surface in tight aggregates known as microcolonies; infection ensues as individual bacteria detach from the microcolony and disseminate throughout the body. Now, Chamot-Rooke et al. - Bacterial secretion | Bacterial genetics | Viral pathogenesis | PDF (92 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):226 (2011)
A sorting platform determines the order of protein secretion in bacterial type III systems Lara-Tejero, M.et al. Science 331, 1188–1191 (2011) Salmonella enterica subsp. - Bacterial physiology: Wrapped up in each other | PDF (183 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):227 (2011)
Bacteria interact in various ways to exchange proteins, nutrients and genetic material. In a recent issue of Cellular Microbiology, Kudryashev and colleagues describe a new type of bacterium–bacterium interaction among Borrelia spp. - Virology: Viral capsids get stuffed | PDF (139 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):228 (2011)
The formation of viral particles was thought to be a sequential and irreversible process in which the assembly of one component generates a new site or conformational state that allows for the assembly of the next component, and so on. However, according to a paper published in PLoS Biology, rather than acting sequentially, the genome-packaging machinery of bacteriophage T4 is highly promiscuous and can translocate multiple DNA molecules into both immature and mature capsid heads. - Horizontal gene transfer: Eukaryotes under a new light | PDF (145 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):228 (2011)
Proteorhodopsins are light-driven proton pumps that harvest energy from light to help bacteria and archaea grow and survive when nutrients are scarce. Now, Slamovits and colleagues show that bacteria-derived proteorhodopsins are present in some marine protists. - Cellular microbiology: Bacterial networking | PDF (285 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):229 (2011)
Exchange of cellular contents by tubular conduits between neighbouring cells is common in multicellular eukaryotic organisms. For example, plant cells can be connected by cytoplasmic tubes known as plasmodesmata, whereas mammalian cells use gap junctions and synapses to connect to adjacent cells and nanotubes for longer-distance communication. - Pneu tricks | PDF (212 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):230 (2011)
This month's Genome Watch looks at how recombination has provided Streptococcus pneumoniae with the adaptability to overcome challenges. - In the news | PDF (145 KB)
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):231 (2011)
The percentage of people in Zimbabwe who are infected with HIV dropped by almost 50% between 1997 and 2007, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine. The researchers point to various reasons for the decline, including education programmes aimed at influencing people's attitude towards having multiple concurrent sex partners, the increased acceptance of the use of condoms and the economic troubles in the country (which decreased income). - Shifting the balance: antibiotic effects on host–microbiota mutualism
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):233 (2011)
Antibiotics have been used effectively as a means to treat bacterial infections in humans and animals for over half a century. However, through their use, lasting alterations are being made to a mutualistic relationship that has taken millennia to evolve: the relationship between the host and its microbiota. Host–microbiota interactions are dynamic; therefore, changes in the microbiota as a consequence of antibiotic treatment can result in the dysregulation of host immune homeostasis and an increased susceptibility to disease. A better understanding of both the changes in the microbiota as a result of antibiotic treatment and the consequential changes in host immune homeostasis is imperative, so that these effects can be mitigated. - Modulation of NF-κB signalling by microbial pathogens
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):291 (2011)
The nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) family of transcription factors plays a central part in the host response to infection by microbial pathogens, by orchestrating the innate and acquired host immune responses. The NF-κB proteins are activated by diverse signalling pathways that originate from many different cellular receptors and sensors. Many successful pathogens have acquired sophisticated mechanisms to regulate the NF-κB signalling pathways by deploying subversive proteins or hijacking the host signalling molecules. Here, we describe the mechanisms by which viruses and bacteria micromanage the host NF-κB signalling circuitry to favour the continued survival of the pathogen. - Malaria vaccines: the stage we are at
- Nat Rev Micro 9(4):306 (2011)
The authors wish to acknowledge that they were supported by funding from the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre programme at the time of writing. The authors apologize for the oversight.
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