Latest Proteobacteria Stories
By Megan RauscherNEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The stomach bug Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most stomach ulcers, so doctors often try to eradicate the trouble-maker with antibiotic therapy. When this doesn't work, as is the case 10-23 percent of the time, a yogurt may help, according to a study conducted in Taiwan.Specifically, eating yogurt containing the beneficial bacteria Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium (AB-yogurt) before trying a second round of combo antibiotic therapy can...
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - A common bacteria that clings to the inside of water pipes stays in place with the strongest glue known to exist in nature, according to a team of scientists that includes an Indiana University biologist.The researchers found that the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus can withstand a force equivalent to five tons per square inch - the pressure exerted by three or four cars balanced atop a quarter - before it is swept from its moorings.Yves Brun, the IU biologist who...
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A protein called Birc1e, found within the cells of the body, plays a key role in detecting and controlling infection with Legionella pneumophila, the bacterium that causes Legionnaire's disease, according to a new report.Legionnaires' disease, a severe type of pneumonia, gets its name from a 1976 outbreak that occurred among people staying at a Philadelphia hotel that was hosting an American Legion convention. Later, the organism that caused the illness was named...
By Anne Harding NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The bacterium responsible for causing legionnaires disease can spread up to 6 kilometers from its source by airborne transmission, French researchers report. Legionella pneumophila likes to live in hot water, such as in industrial cooling towers or the water systems of large buildings where it can then cause pneumonia-like infections. Now it seems that a wider area may be at risk. Past studies found airborne legionella spread only a few...
By Anthony J. Brown, MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Helicobacter pylori infection, which affects about one third of adults in the US, is associated with an increased risk of iron deficiency and related anemia, according to the results of a new study. Moreover, this relationship holds true even in the absence of peptic ulcer disease, which can cause iron-deficiency anemia through hemorrhage, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology. "For the first time in a...
By Megan RauscherNEW YORK (Reuters Health) - While Legionnaire's disease occurs with marked summertime seasonality, epidemiologists have discovered that it's wet, humid weather, rather than increased temperature, that best predicts the acute occurrence of the disease.A sharp increase Legionnaire's disease in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area in recent years, which had been characterized by unusually heavy rainfall, led local epidemiologists to investigate the seasonality of...
By Deborah Mitchell WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Chlorine dioxide can be safely used to remove Legionella and other water-borne pathogens from a hospital's water supply, researchers reported recently at the 45th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Before disinfection, L. pneumophila, the bacteria that cause Legionnaires' disease, was detected in 57 percent of water samples at their hospital. After disinfection with chlorine, levels dropped to 10 percent....
By Will Boggs, MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study for the first time hints that maternal infection with Helicobacter pylori -- the bacterium that causes most cases of stomach ulcers -- is associated with an increased risk of childhood leukemia in the offspring. Leukemia makes up 25 percent of all childhood cancers worldwide and so-called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of the blood cancer, comprises about 80 percent of all childhood leukemias. The fact...
CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian scientist who jointly won the 2005 Nobel prize for medicine said he became a human guinea pig and drank a cocktail of bacteria to prove his theories that ulcers were not caused by stress. Australian professor Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel prize for their 1982 discovery that the Helicobacter pylori bacterium, rather than stress, caused stomach ulcers and inflammation. Marshall, who spent Tuesday fielding calls of...
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Australians Barry Marshall and Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Medicine prize for discovering a bacterium that causes gastritis and stomach ulcers, said the Nobel Assembly of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute on Monday. They made the "remarkable and unexpected discovery that inflammation in the stomach as well as ulceration of the stomach...is the result of an infection of the stomach caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori," it said, announcing the winners of...
Latest Proteobacteria Reference Libraries
Salmonella enterica is a subspecies of Salmonella enterica, the rod shaped, flagellated, aerobic, Gram-negative bacterium. It is a member of the genus Salmonella and many of the pathogenic serovars of the S. enterica species are in this subspecies. Serovars can be designated fully or in a shortened form. The genus, Salmonella, is on the short form lists which are followed by the capitalized and non-italicized serovar. Each serovar can have many strains as well, which allows for a rapid...
Neisseria meningitidis is a heterotrophic gram-negative diplococcal bacterium best known for its role in meningitis and other forms of meningococcal disease such as meningococcemia. It is a major cause of morbidity and mortality during childhood in industrialized countries and is responsible for epidemics in Africa and in Asia. In the US there are approximately 2500 to 3500 cases of N. meningitides infections. Children under 5 are at a higher risk as well as people in the sub-Saharan...
Helicobacter pylori is a Gram-negative, microaerophilic bacterium that can inhabit various areas of the stomach, particularly the antrum. It causes low-level inflammation of the stomach lining and is linked to gastric ulcers and stomach cancer. Out of those infected, 80%, are asymptomatic. It was initially named Campyloacter pyloridis and then renamed C. pylori to correct the Latin grammar error. It was later placed in the genus, Helicobacter. Over 50% of the population has H. pylori in...
Haemophilus influenzae is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium first described in 1892 by Richard Pfeiffer during an influenza pandemic. It is generally aerobic but can grow as a facultative anaerobe. H. influenzae was mistakenly considered to be the cause of influenza until 1933 when the flu virology became apparent. It was the first free-living organism to have its entire genome sequenced. The project was completed and published in 1995. Two major categories were defined: the...
Haemophilus ducreyi is a fastidious gram-negative coccobacillus causing the sexually transmitted disease chancroid, a major cause of genital ulceration in developing countries characterized by painful sores on the genitalia. Early symptoms are dark and light green shears in excrement. Chancroid starts as an erythematous popular lesion that breaks down into a painful bleeding ulcer. It can be cultured on chocolate agar. It is an opportunistic microorganism that infects through the...
