Latest Bacteria Stories
Newcastle University scientists have revealed the mechanism that causes a slime to form, making bacteria hard to shift and resistant to antibiotics. When under threat, some bacteria can shield themselves in a slimy protective layer, known as a biofilm. It is made up of communities of bacteria held together to protect themselves from attack. Biofilms cause dental plaque and sinusitis; in healthcare, biofilms can lead to life threatening and difficult to treat infections, particularly on...
A new technique based on atomic force microscopy was developed at the Institute of Food Research to help ‘read’ information encoded in the gut lining. The lining of our gut is an important barrier between the outside world and our bodies. Laid out, the gut lining would cover the area of a football pitch. It must let nutrients from our foods through, but prevent invasion by disease-causing bacteria, at the same time hosting the trillions of beneficial bacteria needed for proper...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Groups of microorganisms known as biofilms, which cling to surfaces and build protective coatings, have helped make the human pathogen Salmonella more resistant to the protective measures that could help prevent outbreaks from occurring, researchers from Virginia Tech claim in a new study. Salmonella bacteria, which the CDC reports causes over one million Americans to fall ill each year, has become more resistant to...
A new broad range antibiotic, developed jointly by scientists at The Rockefeller University and Astex Pharmaceuticals, has been found to kill a wide range of bacteria, including drug-resistant Staphylococcus (MRSA) bacteria that do not respond to traditional drugs, in mice. The antibiotic, Epimerox, targets weaknesses in bacteria that have long been exploited by viruses that attack them, known as phage, and has even been shown to protect animals from fatal infection by Bacillus anthracis, the...
Harvard University New research from Harvard University helps to explain how waterborne bacteria can colonize rough surfaces—even those that have been designed to resist water. A team of materials scientists and microbiologists studied the gut bacterium Escherichia coli, which has many flagella that stick out in all directions. The researchers found that these tails can act as biological grappling hooks, reaching far into nanoscale crevices and latching the bacteria in place. The...
Researchers have been able to reconstruct the genome sequence of an outbreak strain of Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) using metagenomics (the direct sequencing of DNA extracted from microbiologically complex samples), according to a study in the April 10 issue of JAMA, a Genomics theme issue. The findings highlight the potential of this approach to identify and characterize bacterial pathogens directly from clinical specimens without laboratory culture. "The outbreak of...
There's an epic battle taking place that's not on the national radar: intercellular competition. While it's not an Olympic event, new research from UC Santa Barbara demonstrates that this microscopic rivalry can be just as fierce as humans going for the gold. Christopher Hayes, UCSB associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, along with postdoctoral fellow Sanna Koskiniemi, graduate student James Lamoureux, and others, examined the role certain proteins, called...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online When it happened in 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill released 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and was described as one of the greatest man-made ecological disasters to ever impact the region. However, new research presented at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in New Orleans this week suggested that the Gulf has a natural mechanism capable of breaking down spilled...
LA JOLLA, Calif., April 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A team of researchers led by scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has published a study outlining the recovery and genomic analysis, using single-cell genomic techniques, of a periodontal pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis, from a hospital sink. This is the first time that a single-cell genome sequencing approach was used to isolate and analyze a single microbe from a biofilm in a healthcare setting. The team,...
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report that a pathogen annually blamed for an estimated 90 million cases of food-borne illness defeats a host's immune response by using a fat-snipping enzyme to cut off cellular communication. "Our findings provide insight into severe bacterial infectious diseases, as well as some forms of cancer, in which the attachment of fat molecules to proteins is an essential feature of the disease process," said Dr. Neal Alto, assistant professor of...
Latest Bacteria Reference Libraries
Yersinia enterocolitica is a species of gram-negative coccobacillus-shaped bacterium, belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. Infection from Yersinia enterocolitica causes the zoonotic disease yersiniosis. Most infected animals recover from the disease and become asymptomatic carriers. Acute infections lead to mild self-limiting entero-colitis or terminal ileitis in humans. Symptoms include watery or bloody diarrhea and fever. After oral uptake it replicates in the terminal ileum and...
Vibrio vulnificus is a species of Gram-negative, motile, curved, rod-shaped bacteria of the Vibrio Genus. Hollis et al. first reported it in 1976. It was given the name Beneckea vulnifica by Reichelt et al. in 1976 and in 1979 Vibrio vulnificus by Farmer. V. vulnificus is related to V. cholerae and is present in marine environments such as estuaries, brackish ponds, or coastal areas. It causes an infection often incurred after eating seafood, especially raw or undercooked oysters. It can...
Streptococcus mutans is a Gram-positive cocci, Facultative anaerobic bacterium commonly found in the human oral cavity and is a significant contributor to tooth decay. J Kilian Clarke first described the microbe in 1924. The first colonizers of the tooth surface are mainly Neisseria spp. and streptococci, including S. mutans. The pioneer species changes the local environmental conditions through growth and metabolism thus allowing more fastidious organisms to further colonize after them,...
Staphylococcus epidermidis is one of thirty-three known species belonging to the genus Staphylococcus. It is part of our skin flora and can also be found in the mucous membranes and in animals. It is the most common species found in laboratory test due to contamination. It is not usually pathogenic; however, patients with a compromised immune system often risk infection. Infections can be both nosocomial and community acquired and are more of a threat to hospital patients. Hospitals carry...
Staphylococcus aureus is a facultative anaerobic gram-positive coccus, and is the most common cause of staph infections. It is commonly part of the skin flora found in the nose and on skin. Around 20% of the human population is long-term carriers. It gets its golden color due to its carotenoid pigment staphyloxanthin. The pigment acts as a virulence factor with an antioxidant action that allows the microbe to evade death by reactive oxygen species used by the host immune system. Staphylococci...
