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Fungal meiosis and parasexual reproduction-lessons from pathogenic yeast.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Meiosis is an integral part of sexual reproduction in eukaryotic species. It performs the dual functions of halving the genetic content in the cell, as well as increasing genetic diversity by promoting recombination between chromosome homologs. Despite extensive studies of meiosis in model yeast, it is now apparent that both the regulation of meiosis and the machinery mediating recombination have significantly diverged, even between closely related species. To highlight this, we discuss new studies on sex in Candida species, a diverse collection of hemiascomycetes that are related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and are im...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - November 3, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Sherwood RK, Bennett RJ Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Cell division is dispensable but not irrelevant in Streptomyces.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In part, members of the genus Streptomyces have been studied because they produce many important secondary metabolites with antibiotic activity and for the interest in their relatively elaborate life cycle. These sporulating filamentous bacteria are remarkably synchronous for division and genome segregation in specialized aerial hyphae. Streptomycetes share some, but not all, of the division genes identified in the historic model rod-shaped organisms. Curiously, normally essential cell division genes are dispensable for growth and viability of Streptomyces coelicolor. Mainly, cell division plays a more important role i...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - November 2, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: McCormick JR Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Growth and development: eukaryotes.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19889571 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - November 2, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Berman J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Division site selection in rod-shaped bacteria.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Rod-shaped bacteria often divide with high precision at midcell to produce two equally sized daughter cells. The positioning of the division machinery in Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis is spatially regulated by two inhibitory systems, the nucleoid occlusion and the Min system. The current models suggest that the target of the inhibitory mechanism is the cytoskeletal element FtsZ and that the concerted action of nucleoid occlusion and Min are necessary for correct placement of the division machinery. However, recent advances show that at least the Min system also ensures that division occurs only once in a cell ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 31, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Bramkamp M, van Baarle S Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Activation of gene expression by small RNA.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) commonly act to downregulate gene expression. In bacteria, however, sRNAs have also been shown to activate genes by a variety of direct or indirect mechanisms. Several sRNAs (DsrA, GlmZ, RNAIII, RprA, RyhB, and Qrr) act as direct translational activators by an 'anti-antisense mechanism' in the 5' mRNA region to liberate a sequestered ribosome binding site, while pairing of GadY sRNA to the 3'-end alters processing and increases stability of its target mRNA. Indirect activation includes cases of RNA mimicry in which degradation of the activating GlmZ sRNA is suppressed by the highly similar...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 30, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Fröhlich KS, Vogel J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Mycobacterium versus Streptomyces-we are different, we are the same.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
At first glance, bacteria that belong to the two genera Streptomyces and Mycobacterium of the phylum Actinobacteria show no sign of similarity. Whereas Streptomyces species are generally classified as spore-forming, filamentous bacteria, species of the Mycobacterium genus have been considered non-sporulating, rod-like shaped. However, recent studies in genetics and cell biology of Streptomyces and Mycobacterium have revealed striking analogies in the developmental and morphological hallmarks of their life cycles. Understanding the mechanisms underlying these similarities, as well as variations in morphogenesis and deve...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 30, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Scherr N, Nguyen L Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Growth and development: prokaryotes.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19880346 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 30, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Viollier PH Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Epigenetic inheritance in ciliates.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
2009 marks not only the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth but also publication of the first scientific evolutionary theory, Lamarck's Philosophie Zoologique. While Lamarck embraced the notion of the inheritance of acquired characters, he did not invent it (Burkhardt, 1984) [1]. New phenomena discovered recently offer molecular pathways for the transmission of several acquired characters. Ciliates have long provided model systems to study phenomena that bypass traditional modes of inheritance. RNA, normally thought of as a conduit in gene expression, displays a novel mode of action in ciliated protozoa. For example, m...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 29, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Nowacki M, Landweber LF Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Mechanisms and regulation of polar surface attachment in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a plant pathogen that transfers a segment of its own DNA into host plants to cause Crown Gall disease. The infection process requires intimate contact between the infecting bacteria and the host tissue. A. tumefaciens attaches efficiently to plant tissues and to abiotic surfaces, and can establish complex biofilms at colonization sites. The dominant mode of attachment is via a single pole in contact with the surface. Several different appendages, adhesins and adhesives play roles during attachment, and foster the transition from free-swimming to sessile growth. This polar surface interactio...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 28, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Tomlinson AD, Fuqua C Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Rearrangements of the transcriptional regulatory networks of metabolic pathways in fungi.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Growing evidence suggests that transcriptional regulatory networks in many organisms are highly flexible. Here, we discuss the evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks governing the metabolic machinery of sequenced ascomycetes. In particular, recent work has shown that transcriptional rewiring is common in regulons controlling processes such as production of ribosome components and metabolism of carbohydrates and lipids. We note that dramatic rearrangements of the transcriptional regulatory components of metabolic functions have occurred among ascomycetes species. PMID: 19875326 [PubMed - as supplied by pub...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 27, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Lavoie H, Hogues H, Whiteway M Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Prion dynamics and the quest for the genetic determinant in protein-only inheritance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
According to the prion hypothesis, proteins may act in atypical roles as genetic elements of infectivity and inheritance by undergoing self-replicating changes in physical state. While the preponderance of evidence strongly supports this concept particularly in fungi, the detailed mechanisms by which distinct protein forms specify unique phenotypes are emerging concepts. A particularly active area of investigation is the molecular nature of the heritable species, which has been probed through genetic, biochemical, and cell biological experimentation as well as by mathematical modeling. Here, we suggest that these studi...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 26, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Sindi SS, Serio TR Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Self-signalling and self-fusion in filamentous fungi.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The formation of interconnected hyphal networks is central to the organisation and functioning of the filamentous fungal colony. It is brought about by the fusion of specialised hyphae during colony initiation and mature colony development. These hyphae are normally genetically identical, and hence this process is termed hyphal self-fusion. The conidial anastomosis tube (CAT) functions in forming networks of conidial germlings during colony initiation. This hyphal type in Neurospora crassa is being used as a model for studies on hyphal self-signalling and self-fusion in filamentous fungi. Extraordinary new insights int...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 26, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Read ND, Lichius A, Shoji JY, Goryachev AB Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Spatial regulation in Caulobacter crescentus.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The proper positioning of regulatory proteins has a central role in the organization of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Important insights into the principles that underlie the spatial control of cellular processes have been gained from studies on the asymmetric bacterium C. crescentus. In this organism, the cell cycle state is monitored by a complex two-component signaling network that feeds into the central pathways controlling gene expression, DNA replication and polar morphogenesis. Moreover, a sophisticated regulatory system closely interconnects chromosome dynamics with cell division, thus ensuring the gen...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 23, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Thanbichler M Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Signals of growth regulation in bacteria.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A fundamental characteristic of cells is their ability to regulate growth in response to changing environmental conditions. This review focuses on recent progress toward understanding the mechanisms by which bacterial growth is regulated. These phenomena include the 'viable but not culturable' (VBNC) state, in which bacterial growth becomes conditional, and 'persistence', which confers antibiotic resistance to a small fraction of bacteria in a population. Notably, at least one form of persistence appears to involve the generation of nongrowing phenotypic variants after transition through stationary phase. The possible ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 22, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Hayes CS, Low DA Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

White-opaque switching in Candida albicans.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The human commensal yeast Candida albicans undergoes an epigenetic switch between two distinct types of cells, referred to as white and opaque. These two cell types differ in many respects, including their cell and colony morphologies, their metabolic states, their mating behaviors, their preferred niches in the host, and their interactions with the host immune system. Each of the two cell types is heritable for many generations and switching between them appears stochastic; however, environmental cues can significantly alter the frequency of switching. We review recent work on white-opaque switching, including the est...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Lohse MB, Johnson AD Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

The role of sex in fungal evolution.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Sex in fungi is often associated with dispersal and dormancy, but in many species is not required for reproduction, and its evolutionary genetic role is unclear. Sex can accelerate adaptation to a new environment, and recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, though historically rare, has had a prominent role in the origins of many sequenced strains, in particular the origin of clinical strains from domesticated ancestors. Sex and recombination have recently been discovered in several human pathogens that were long thought to be asexual, but so far there is no compelling evidence that it plays an important genetic rol...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Zeyl C Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Genetic code ambiguity: an unexpected source of proteome innovation and phenotypic diversity.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Translation of the genome into the proteome is a highly accurate biological process. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in protein synthesis are not error free and downstream protein quality control systems are needed to counteract the negative effects of translational errors (mistranslation) on proteome and cell homeostasis. This plus human and mice diseases caused by translational error generalized the idea that codon ambiguity is detrimental to life. Here we depart from this classical view of deleterious translational error and highlight how codon ambiguity can play important roles in the evolution of novel ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Moura GR, Carreto LC, Santos MA Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Conservation and divergence of centromere specification in yeast.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Centromeres are specialized structures on eukaryotic chromosomes that couple chromosome movements to spindle microtubule movements and allow accurate chromosome segregation during cell division. In spite of these vital functions, recent evidence strongly suggests that epigenetic regulation rather than the primary DNA sequence of the centromere plays a dominant role in the specification of centromeres. The key determinant of centromere identity is the centromere-specific histone H3 variant CENP-A (also known as CenH3). This review highlights exciting new findings examining the mechanism of centromere specification in di...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 18, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Ishii K Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

CDKs and the yeast-hyphal decision.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Fungal cells exist in a diverse range of morphologies. Some species, such as Candida albicans, are dimorphic capable of growing either in a yeast-like form or as a hypha. Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) have long been thought to play a central role in the yeast-hyphal decision. However, until recently direct links of CDKs with proteins that execute polarized growth were elusive. In this review I will focus on new findings that have established concrete links between CDKs and several key components of the polarity machinery in C. albicans and the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Inhibitory phosphorylation of the ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 15, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Wang Y Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Current insights into phage biodiversity and biogeography.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Phages exert tremendous ecological and evolutionary forces directly on their bacterial hosts. Phage induced cell lysis also indirectly contributes to organic and inorganic nutrient recycling. Phage abundance, diversity, and distribution are therefore important parameters in ecosystem function. The assumption that phage consortia are ubiquitous and homogenous across habitats (everything is everywhere) is currently being re-evaluated. New studies on phage biogeography have found that some phages are globally distributed while others are unique and perhaps endemic to specific environments. Furthermore, advances in technol...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - October 4, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Thurber RV Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

From functional genomics to systems (micro)biology.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19781981 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 22, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Buchrieser C, Cole ST Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Epigenetic regulation of the bacterial cell cycle.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
N(6)-methyl-adenines can serve as epigenetic signals for interactions between regulatory DNA sequences and regulatory proteins that control cellular functions, such as the initiation of chromosome replication or the expression of specific genes. Several of these genes encode master regulators of the bacterial cell cycle. DNA adenine methylation is mediated by Dam in gamma-proteobacteria and by CcrM in alpha-proteobacteria. A major difference between them is that CcrM is cell cycle regulated, while Dam is active throughout the cell cycle. In alpha-proteobacteria, GANTC sites can remain hemi-methylated for a significant ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Collier J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Direct methods for studying transcription regulatory proteins and RNA polymerase in bacteria.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Transcription factors and sigma factors play a major role in bacterial gene regulation by guiding the distribution of RNA polymerase between the promoters of different transcription units in response to changes in the environment. For 40 years Escherichia coli K-12 has been the paradigm for investigating this regulation and most studies have focused on small numbers of promoters studied by a combination of genetics and biochemistry. Since the first complete sequence for a bacterial genome was reported, the emphasis has switched to studying transcription on a global scale, with transcriptomics and bioinformatics becomin...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 14, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Grainger DC, Lee DJ, Busby SJ Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Experimental approaches for the discovery and characterization of regulatory small RNA.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Following the pioneering screens for small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) in Escherichia coli in 2001, sRNAs are now being identified in almost every branch of the eubacterial kingdom. Experimental strategies have become increasingly important for sRNA discovery, thanks to increased availability of tiling arrays and fast progress in the development of high-throughput cDNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). The new technologies also facilitate genome-wide discovery of potential target mRNAs by sRNA pulse-expression coupled to transcriptomics, and immunoprecipitation with RNA-binding proteins such as Hfq. Moreover, the staggering rate of ne...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 13, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Sharma CM, Vogel J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Recent advances in systems microbiology.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Systems biology is a rapidly expanding field fuelled by the 'omics' era coupled to several new technological advances that have increased the precision of data obtainable, meaning that it is now feasible to obtain quantitative measurements from a single cell. The aim of systems biology is to understand the structure, dynamics and interactions of whole cells rather than the function of individual parts. The challenge now is to use these data in conjunction with modelling techniques to extend our knowledge of bacterial systems and to be able to experimentally verify in silico predictions. PMID: 19748820 [PubMed - as ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 10, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Kay E, Wren BW Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

System-level analysis of Salmonella metabolism during infection.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Infectious diseases represent a major threat to human health. To develop urgently needed new control strategies, a transition from research focusing on individual factors to a more integrated system-level analysis might be needed. Such an approach faces great challenges and might require development of new concepts in large-scale data analysis. Here, I discuss for the well-characterized model pathogen Salmonella, how extensively studied metabolism can be used as a training field for infection biology at the systems level. Extensive experimental data can be analyzed in context using metabolic network visualization tools...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 7, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Bumann D Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Novel biological insights through metabolomics and (13)C-flux analysis.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Metabolomics and (13)C-flux analysis have become instrumental for analyzing cellular metabolism and its regulation. Driven primarily by technical advances in mass spectrometry-based analytics, they provide unmatched readouts on metabolic state and activity. Functional genomics leverages metabolomics for the discovery of novel enzymes and unexpected secondary activities of annotated enzymes. (13)C-flux analyses are frequently used for empirical elucidation of pathways in poorly characterized species and for network-wide analysis of mechanisms that realize energy and redox balancing. Integration of metabolomics, (13)C-fl...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 7, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Zamboni N, Sauer U Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Antimicrobials.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19733112 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - September 1, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Walsh CT, Wright GD Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

The clinical consequences of antimicrobial resistance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The continued evolution of antimicrobial resistance in the hospital and more recently in the community threatens to seriously compromise our ability to treat serious infections. The major success of the seven-valent Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine at reducing both infection and resistance has been followed by the emergence of previously minor serotypes that express multiresistance. The almost universal activity of cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones against community Escherichia coli strains has been compromised by the spread of CTX-M beta-lactamase-producing, fluoroquinolone-resistant strains, and the emergence of co...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - August 26, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Rice LB Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 as a model for metabolic system biology.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Information produced by the annotation of an 'average bacterial genome' can be separated into three parts. One-third represents what we know, another third what we think we know, and the last third what we know we do not know. Knowledge of metabolism is also described by this three thirds rule. Understanding how a cell operates will require a better knowledge of the two ignored thirds of its parts. Moreover, metabolism needs to be further investigated using organisms whose life styles are different from those of model organisms. In this short review, we present Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 as an environmental model especi...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - August 23, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: de Berardinis V, Durot M, Weissenbach J, Salanoubat M Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Antibiotics from microbes: converging to kill.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As genetically encoded small molecules, antibiotics are phenotypes that have resulted from mutation and natural selection. Advances in genetics, biochemistry, and bioinformatics have connected hundreds of antibiotics to the gene clusters that encode them, allowing these molecules to be analyzed using the tools of evolutionary biology. This review surveys examples of convergent evolution from microbially produced antibiotics, including the convergence of distinct gene clusters on similar phenotypes and the merger of distinct gene clusters into a single functional unit. Examining antibiotics through an evolutionary lens ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - August 17, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Fischbach MA Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Mass spectrometry based metabolomics and enzymatic assays for functional genomics.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The exponential growth in the number of sequenced microorganisms versus the relative slow influx of direct biochemical characterization of microbes is limiting the utility of sequence information. High-throughput experimental approaches to functionally characterize microbial metabolism are urgently needed to leverage genome sequences for example: to understand host-microbe interactions, microbial communities, to utilize microbes for bioenergy, bioremediation, etc. Mass spectrometry based small molecule metabolite analysis is rapidly becoming a method of choice to meet these needs and enables multiple paths to discoveri...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - August 17, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Baran R, Reindl W, Northen TR Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Structure, function and inhibition of RND efflux pumps in Gram-negative bacteria: an update.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Resistance nodulation division efflux systems have a major role in both intrinsic and acquired multi-drug resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. The recent structure of an assembled tripartite system, AcrAB-TolC, revealed that AcrB is docked onto TolC, which remains in an open state once part of the assembled complex and three AcrA molecules complete the structure. This is in contrast to data for the MexAB-OprM system of P. aeruginosa that, depending on pH, has between two and six MexA molecules per OprM trimer. RND systems are also important for pathogenicity of several bacteria and for Salmonellae lacking components o...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - August 4, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Blair JM, Piddock LJ Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

New screens and targets in antibacterial drug discovery.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As the supply of effective antibiotics dwindles and the emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria becomes more commonplace, there is an urgent need to identify novel antibacterial targets and leads with new mechanisms of action. Among the strategies to bolster our current scarcity of effective antibiotics are biochemical and phenotype-based screens, and the rational design of inhibitors. In this review we highlight some recent contributions that these methodologies have yielded, placing particular emphasis on screens capable of identifying novel leads involved in such processes as virulence; underexploited targets tha...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 31, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Falconer SB, Brown ED Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Role of reactive oxygen species in antibiotic action and resistance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The alarming spread of bacterial strains exhibiting resistance to current antibiotic therapies necessitates that we elucidate the specific genetic and biochemical responses underlying drug-mediated cell killing, so as to increase the efficacy of available treatments and develop new antibacterials. Recent research aimed at identifying such cellular contributions has revealed that antibiotics induce changes in metabolism that promote the formation of reactive oxygen species, which play a role in cell death. Here we discuss the relationship between drug-induced oxidative stress, the SOS response and their potential combin...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 29, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Dwyer DJ, Kohanski MA, Collins JJ Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Connecting viral with cellular interactomes.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Genome-scale screens for intraviral and virus-host protein interactions and the analysis of literature-curated datasets are able to provide a novel, comprehensive perspective of viruses, and virus-infected cells. Until now, large-scale interaction screens were predominantly performed with the yeast-two-hybrid (Y2H) system; however, alternative high-throughput technologies detecting binary protein interactions or protein complexes have been developed. Although many of the previous studies suffer from a rather poor validation of the results and few biological implications, these technologies potentially lead to a plethor...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 23, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Bailer S, Haas J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

How human pathogenic fungi sense and adapt to pH: the link to virulence.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The ability of fungal pathogens to cause disease is dependent on the ability to grow within the human host environment. In general, the human host environment can be considered a slightly alkaline environment, and the ability of fungi to grow at this pH is essential for pathogenesis. The Rim101 signal transduction pathway is the primary pH sensing pathway described in the pathogenic fungi, and in Candida albicans, it is required for a variety of diseases. As more detailed analyses have been conducted studying pathogenesis at the molecular level, it has become clear that the Rim101 pathway, and pH responses in general, ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 22, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Davis DA Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Systems biology of virus infection in mammalian cells.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19631577 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Pelkmans L Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Productive steps toward an antimicrobial targeting virulence.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Targeting virulence factors has gained increasing attention as a potential approach to new antibiotics. Small molecule inhibitors of virulence have been shown to change the course of disease in whole organism infection models. Recently, key advances in the field include the identification of novel targets within cell signaling pathways, a new class of anti-virulence compounds that target bacterial defenses against host immunity, and a growing body of in vivo data to support the general approach of anti-virulence therapies. Additionally, there has been a distinct trend toward developing broader spectrum anti-virulence c...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 21, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Barczak AK, Hung DT Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Fighting the oxidative assault: the Trypanosoma cruzi journey to infection.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Activation of professional phagocytes with the concomitant generation of oxidant species is a medullar innate immune process for the control of acute Trypanosoma cruzi infection. Recent data reinforce the hypothesis that parasites more prepared to deal with the host-oxidative assault are more efficient for the establishment of Chagas disease. For instance, parasites overexpressing peroxiredoxins are more resistant to macrophage-derived peroxynitrite, a key cytotoxic oxidant produced in the phagosome towards the internalized parasite. Differentiation to the infective metacyclic trypomastigote is accompanied by an increa...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 16, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Piacenza L, Alvarez MN, Peluffo G, Radi R Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Nitrosative and oxidative stress responses in fungal pathogenicity.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Fungal pathogenicity has arisen in polyphyletic manner during evolution, yielding fungal pathogens with diverse infection strategies and with differing degrees of evolutionary adaptation to their human host. Not surprisingly, these fungal pathogens display differing degrees of resistance to the reactive oxygen and nitrogen species used by human cells to counteract infection. Furthermore, whilst evolutionarily conserved regulators, such as Hog1, are central to such stress responses in many fungal pathogens, species-specific differences in their roles and regulation abound. In contrast, there is a high degree of commonal...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 15, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Brown AJ, Haynes K, Quinn J Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

The bifunctional enzymes of antibiotic resistance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The evolutionary union of two genes-each encoding proteins of complementary enzymatic activity-into a single gene so as to allow the coordinated expression of these activities as a fusion polypeptide, is an increasingly recognized biological occurrence. The result of this genetic union is the bifunctional enzyme. This fusion of separate catalytic activities into a single protein, whose gene is regulated by a single promoter, is seen especially where the coordinated expression of the separate activities is highly desirable. Increasingly, a circumstance driving the evolution of the bifunctional enzyme in bacteria is the ...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 14, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Zhang W, Fisher JF, Mobashery S Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Physical principles and models describing intracellular virus particle dynamics.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We present resent efforts to estimate global trafficking properties, such as the probability and the mean time for a viral particle to reach a small nuclear pore. However, most signaling pathways involved in controlling viral motion remain undescribed and should be the goal of future modeling efforts. PMID: 19608455 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 13, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Lagache T, Dauty E, Holcman D Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Plasmodium sporozoite-host interactions from the dermis to the hepatocyte.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Sporozoites are the infective stage of the malaria parasite. They are deposited in the skin by infected Anopheles mosquitoes and must penetrate cell barriers in the skin and liver sinusoid to reach their target cell, the hepatocyte, where they enter in a vacuole and begin development into the next life cycle stage, the exoerythrocytic form. Recent advances in our understanding of sporozoite biology in the dermal inoculation site, the role of cell traversal and the mechanism by which sporozoites productively invade hepatocytes will be highlighted in this review. PMID: 19608456 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (So...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 13, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Ejigiri I, Sinnis P Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Plasmodium sporozoite invasion of the mosquito salivary gland.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
About one to two million people die of malaria every year. Anopheline mosquitoes are the obligatory vectors of Plasmodium spp., the causative agent of malaria. For transmission to occur, the parasite has to undergo a complex developmental programme in the mosquito, culminating with sporozoite invasion of the salivary glands. Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that sporozoite invasion requires specific interactions and recognition between sporozoite and salivary gland proteins. Here we review recent progress towards the elucidation of invasion mechanisms. PMID: 19608457 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Sour...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 13, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Ghosh AK, Jacobs-Lorena M Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Persistence pays: how viruses promote host group survival.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Recently, we have realized that viruses numerically dominate all life. Although viruses are known to affect host survival in populations, this has not been previously evaluated in the context of host group selection. Group selection per se is not a currently accepted idea and its apparent occurrence is explained by statistical gene frequency models of kin selection. Viruses were not considered in such models. Prevalent views associate viruses and disease. Yet many viruses establish species-specific persistent, inapparent infections that are stable on an evolutionary time scale. Such persistent infections can have large...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 13, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Villarreal LP Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Stochastic noise in gene expression as a molecular switch for viral latency.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Stochastic 'noise' arises from random thermal fluctuations in the concentration of protein, RNA, or other molecules within the cell and is an unavoidable aspect of life at the single-cell level. Evidence is accumulating that this biochemical noise crucially influences cellular auto-regulatory circuits and can 'flip' genetic switches to drive probabilistic fate decisions in bacteria, viruses, cancer, and stem cells. Here, we review how stochastic gene expression in key auto-regulatory proteins can control fate determination between latency and productive replication in both phage-lambda and HIV-1. We highlight important...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 9, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Singh A, Weinberger LS Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Signal transduction regulates schistosome reproductive biology.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Schistosome parasites exhibit separate sexes and with the evolution of sex they have developed an intricate relationship between the male and female worms such that signals between the male and female that are initiated at the time of mating, regulate female reproductive development and subsequent egg production. As the egg stage is responsible for pathogenesis and transmission, understanding the molecular mechanisms of female reproductive development may identify novel targets for the control of transmission and morbidity of this major world public health problem. Recent data have demonstrated that the pairing process...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 2, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Loverde PT, Andrade LF, Oliveira G Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Mechanisms controlling glideosome function in apicomplexans.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The glideosome is a unique attribute of the Apicomplexa phylum. This myosin-based machine powers parasite motility, migration across biological barriers, host cell invasion and egress from infected cells. The timing, duration and orientation of gliding motility are tightly regulated to assure establishment of infection. Control of glideosome function occurs at several levels. The assembly of the molecular motor complex is governed by posttranslational modifications resulting from a calcium-dependent signalling cascade. The spatially controlled polymerization of actin filaments crucially impacts motility. The relocation...
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 2, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Daher W, Soldati-Favre D Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals

Molecular and cellular approaches to understanding pathogen-host interactions in neglected diseases.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19577951 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology)
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - July 2, 2009 Category: Microbiology Authors: Garcia CR Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: journals