Twisted Microbiology

Some of the world's rarest big cat species are facing a potentially deadly threat from a virus carried by domestic dogs, an expert warns.

 

Via @VirusMuser

Think you know about Pseudomonas aeruginosa? Think you know what makes it tick and be competitive in a range of different niches? Well now is your chance to prove it by participating in the inaugural Pseudomonas World Cup 2014.

 

Via @stevediggle @dr_agoglesby

A new technique could soon spur unprecedented insight into the role of bacterial epigenetics in the evolution of pathogen virulence.

Severe diarrhoea caused by rotavirus claims the lives of 453,000 under-five children worldwide each year. A vaccine developed in India promises cheap protection while adding to the global basket of rotavirus vaccines.

Syphilis and yaws are the result of infection by different subspecies of the bacterium Treponema pallidum. A diagnostic test targeting syphilis and an oral antibiotic could be used together to help eradicate yaws disease, a WHO meeting was told.

A pioneering researcher who also helped develop a vaccine for rabies, Dr. Koprowski never won much recognition for his polio breakthrough, since it was not widely used in the United States.

 

"It was a brew to rival any in “Macbeth.” The main ingredients were rat brain and a fearsome, carefully cultivated virus..."

 

Via @TheFebrileMuse @rdfrs

Finding and vaccinating Nigerian nomads may be one of the last obstacles to the eradication of polio.

 

(Article includes video.)

The relatively scarce "sweet wormwood" plant has long been the only source of the antimalarial drug artemisinin. Now the drug can be commercially produced in large quantities using genetically-modified yeast.

 

Via @raymondmccauley

 

Research paper:

High-level semi-synthetic production of the potent antimalarial artemisinin

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12051

Biologists have known for decades that there are up to seven sexes of the single-celled organism known as Tetrahymena thermophila — but they didn't know exactly how those different sexes "did it." Until now.

 

 

Research article:

Selecting One of Several Mating Types through Gene Segment Joining and Deletion in Tetrahymena thermophila

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001518

For the first time, researchers have reconstructed an ancient microbial genome without using a reference genome. Find out how they did it...

There is an apparent shortage of doxycycline, an old and (usually) inexpensive drug that is used mostly for uncomplicated infections such as sexually transmitted diseases and acne. It is also used, though, as the first treatment for a new case of Lyme disease — and that more than anything has sparked alarm.

 

Via @JenLucPiquant

Scientists have revealed Vibrio parahaemolyticus as the cause of a shrimp disease that has been decimating Asian shrimp yields since 2009.

Medicine used to be obsessed with eradicating the tiny bugs that live within us. Now we’re beginning to understand all the ways they keep us healthy.

The great biologist Francois Jacob has died. He won the Nobel Prize for his work in the 1950s that showed how cells switch genes off – the first crucial step to understanding how life can use the genome like a piano, to make a beautiful melody instead of a blaring cacophony...

 

Via @phylogenomics

An artificial vaccine could be modified to use against problematic forms of foot-and-mouth disease that hit subsistence farmers.

 

Research article:

Rational Engineering of Recombinant Picornavirus Capsids to Produce Safe, Protective Vaccine Antigen

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1003255

Researchers have discovered two new symbionts living in the gut of termites, and taken the unusual step of naming them after fictional monsters created by American horror author HP Lovecraft.

 

(Via ASM Newsdigest)

 

See research article for detailed etymology of the microbes' names:

 

Cthulhu macrofasciculumque n. g., n. sp. and Cthylla microfasciculumque n. g., n. sp., a Newly Identified Lineage of Parabasalian Termite Symbionts

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058509

 

Twenty years ago, tuberculosis (TB) was one of the least glamorous branches of medicine. The cause had long been known, as had the cure, so all that was left was the unromantic slog of reducing the poverty, hunger and overcrowding that fostered the disease, and working out better ways to get patients to comply with the lengthy course of treatment needed to cure it. But in 1993 the sudden upsurge in TB cases associated with HIV and AIDS, and the growth of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of the bacterium, led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the disease a global emergency, which unlocked research funding. Now we are beginning to see the results...

 

Special series of articles (freely available for registered users) published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases:

http://www.lancet.com/series/tuberculosis-2013