Latest Articles Include:
- In this issue
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):243 (2010)
Resistance to antimicrobials has become a worldwide problem. In the United States alone, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has claimed over 18,000 lives to date. - Editorial: A step in the right direction
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):244 (2010)
The recent announcement by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that it will make the structures of over 13,500 compounds from its antimalarial screening programme publicly available is another welcome example of a pharmaceutical company's support for research on diseases that affect developing nations. Under its 'Open Lab' structure, GSK will allow any interested party to develop these compounds further as antimalarials. - Innate immunity: Detailed detection
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):245 (2010)
Two recent papers have revealed further details of how RNA viruses such as West Nile virus (WNV) and influenza virus engage the host innate immune system.Recognition of RNA virus infection by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) triggers an antiviral signalling cascade that culminates in the induction of type I interferons (IFNs) and a proinflammatory response. - Archaea: A road to eukaryotes?
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):246 (2010)
Even though Archaea and Eukarya share a common ancestor, they are dissimilar in their cellular architecture. In a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Küper and colleagues report on the unusual outer membrane of the archaeon Ignicoccus hospitalis and show that this organism has a cellular architecture that is similar to that of eukaryotes. - Bacterial physiology: Circadian 'gating' of cell division
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):246 (2010)
The physiology of most organisms is regulated by the circadian clock, which shows a periodicity of ~ 24 hours and can be changed by environmental cues. In the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus the clock regulates the cell cycle, but how the two are linked was unclear. - Parasitology: Multiple signals for apical secretion
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):246 (2010)
Invasion of host erythrocytes by Plasmodium falciparum merozoites requires attachment to the erythrocyte surface and the coordinated release of the contents of the apical organelles (micronemes and rhoptries) into the host cell. Publishing in PLoS Pathogens, Singh et al. - In brief: Viral immune evasion, Biofilms, Bacterial physiology
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):247 (2010)
Retroviral infection in vivo requires an immune escape virulence factor encrypted in the envelope protein of oncoretroviruses Schlecht-Louf , G.et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 3782–3787 (2010) - Environmental microbiology: Electricity blankets the seabed
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):248 (2010)
Our understanding of how certain types of bacteria generate electrical currents in microbial fuel cells has progressed rapidly in recent years. These so-called exoelectrogenic bacteria are thought to use outer-membrane cytochromes, soluble electron shuttles and conductive nanowires to mediate the extracellular transport of electrons to facilitate cell-to-cell communication and energy transfer. - Antimicrobials: Reactive resistance
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):248 (2010)
Treatment of bacteria with low concentrations of bactericidal antibiotics can generate multidrug resistance through an increase in the mutation rate that is driven by the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), according to a report from Mike Kohanski, Mark DePristo and Jim Collins in a recent issue of Molecular Cell.Previous work from Kohanski, Collins and co-workers had shown that all major classes of bactericidal antibiotics kill cells by inducing the formation of highly toxic hydroxyl radicals, which can damage DNA, proteins and lipids. - Cooking with GAS
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):249 (2010)
This month's Genome Watch discusses another fascinating example of the latest application of second-generation sequencing techniques to the study of bacterial populations. - In the News
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):250 (2010)
There are two broad-spectrum antivirals available (ribavirin and interferon-α), but both can have severe side effects. - Call of the wild: antibiotic resistance genes in natural environments
Allen HK Donato J Wang HH Cloud-Hansen KA Davies J Handelsman J - Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):251 (2010)
Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are profoundly important to human health, but the environmental reservoirs of resistance determinants are poorly understood. The origins of antibiotic resistance in the environment is relevant to human health because of the increasing importance of zoonotic diseases as well as the need for predicting emerging resistant pathogens. This Review explores the presence and spread of antibiotic resistance in non-agricultural, non-clinical environments and demonstrates the need for more intensive investigation on this subject. - Antibiotic resistance and its cost: is it possible to reverse resistance?
Andersson DI Hughes D - Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):260 (2010)
Most antibiotic resistance mechanisms are associated with a fitness cost that is typically observed as a reduced bacterial growth rate. The magnitude of this cost is the main biological parameter that influences the rate of development of resistance, the stability of the resistance and the rate at which the resistance might decrease if antibiotic use were reduced. These findings suggest that the fitness costs of resistance will allow susceptible bacteria to outcompete resistant bacteria if the selective pressure from antibiotics is reduced. Unfortunately, the available data suggest that the rate of reversibility will be slow at the community level. Here, we review the factors that influence the fitness costs of antibiotic resistance, the ways by which bacteria can reduce these costs and the possibility of exploiting them. - Artemisinin resistance: current status and scenarios for containment
Dondorp AM Yeung S White L Nguon C Day NP Socheat D von Seidlein L - Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):272 (2010)
Artemisinin combination therapies are the first-line treatments for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in most malaria-endemic countries. Recently, partial artemisinin-resistant P. falciparum malaria has emerged on the Cambodia–Thailand border. Exposure of the parasite population to artemisinin monotherapies in subtherapeutic doses for over 30 years, and the availability of substandard artemisinins, have probably been the main driving force in the selection of the resistant phenotype in the region. A multifaceted containment programme has recently been launched, including early diagnosis and appropriate treatment, decreasing drug pressure, optimising vector control, targeting the mobile population, strengthening management and surveillance systems, and operational research. Mathematical modelling can be a useful tool to evaluate possible strategies for containment. - Resistance to and synthesis of the antibiotic mupirocin
Thomas CM Hothersall J Willis CL Simpson TJ - Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):281 (2010)
Mupirocin, a polyketide antibiotic produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens, is used to control the carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus on skin and in nasal passages as well as for various skin infections. Low-level resistance to the antibiotic arises by mutation of the mupirocin target, isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase, whereas high-level resistance is due to the presence of an isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase with many similarities to eukaryotic enzymes. Mupirocin biosynthesis is carried out by a combination of type I multifunctional polyketide synthases and tailoring enzymes encoded in a 75 kb gene cluster. Chemical synthesis has also been achieved. This knowledge should allow the synthesis of new and modified antibiotics for the future. - Ethanolamine utilization in bacterial pathogens: roles and regulation
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):290 (2010)
Ethanolamine is a compound that can be readily derived from cell membranes and that some bacteria can use as a source of carbon and/or nitrogen. The complex biology and chemistry of this process has been under investigation since the 1970s, primarily in one or two species. However, recent investigations into ethanolamine utilization have revealed important and intriguing differences in gene content and regulatory mechanisms among the bacteria that harbour this catabolic ability. In addition, many reports have connected this process to bacterial pathogenesis. In this Progress article, I discuss the latest research on the phylogeny and regulation of ethanolamine utilization and its possible roles in bacterial pathogenesis. - Regulation of antigen presentation by Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a role for Toll-like receptors
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 8(4):296 (2010)
Mycobacterium tuberculosis survives in antigen-presenting cells (APCs) such as macrophages and dendritic cells. APCs present antigens in association with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II molecules to stimulate CD4+ T cells, and this process is essential to contain M. tuberculosis infection. Immune evasion allows M. tuberculosis to establish persistent or latent infection in macrophages and results in Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2)-dependent inhibition of MHC class II transactivator expression, MHC class II molecule expression and antigen presentation. This reduction of antigen presentation might reflect a general mechanism of negative-feedback regulation that prevents excessive T cell-mediated inflammation and that M. tuberculosis has subverted to create a niche for survival in infected macrophages and evasion of recognition by CD4+ T cells.
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