Novel Targets for Antibacterial Agents in Brucella sp. from Christian Baron, Jean-Yves Winum and Stephan Köhler writing in Brucella : Molecular Microbiology and Genomics : Novel strategies for the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases are urgently needed. In this chapter we will discuss two complementary approaches aimed at targeting Brucella species during the intracellular growth phase: depriving them of essential amino acid biosynthetic enzymes and disarmament by inhibiting type IV secretion system function that is essential for read more ...

from Kevin X. Chen and F. George Njoroge writing in Hepatitis C: Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development : The hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 protease is essential for viral replication. It is one of the most attractive targets for developing novel antiviral therapies. Two distinct classes of NS3 protease inhibitors have emerged with different mechanisms of action: non-covalent classical inhibitors and covalent inhibitors. Several types of warheads for covalent bonding have been studied. Among them, the ketoamides have been the most successful read more ...

Physiological Adaptations and Biotechnological Applications of Acidophiles from Mark Dopson writing in Extremophiles: Microbiology and Biotechnology : Acidophilic microorganisms are capable of growth at low pH and are defined as having an optimum below pH 5, with some extreme acidophiles capable of growth at pH 0. Acidophiles have an important role in ecology by catalyzing the generation of acidic, metal-containing solutions that can inhibit plant and animal growth, and in biotechnology via their propensity to solubilize metals from sulfide read more ...

Poisoning the Host by Toxins from writing in Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms : Further reading: Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular and Cellular read more ...

Protein Glycosylation in the Third Domain of Life: the Archaea from John F. Kelly and Ken F. Jarrell writing in Bacterial Glycomics: Current Research, Technology and Applications : Archaea are single-celled microorganisms that are sufficiently distinct as to constitute a third domain of life. It has been known for some time that Archaea express glycoproteins. However, research to understand the nature of their glycan modifications, the pathways used to produce them as well as their role in archaeal biology has lagged behind similar efforts read more ...

Psychrophiles: Life in the Cold from Corien Bakermans writing in Extremophiles: Microbiology and Biotechnology : Psychrophilic, or cold-loving, organisms actively live at low temperatures. Psychrophily is not an uncommon trait; cold-adapted organisms are found throughout the three domains of life and successfully inhabit a wide variety of low temperature environments. The ongoing investigation of these environments continues to broaden our view of what is possible for life on Earth. Cold-adapted microorganisms have evolved mechanisms to deal read more ...

Quorum Sensing and Social Interactions in Microbial Biofilms from Robert J. Goldstone, Roman Popat, Matthew P. Fletcher, Shanika A. Crusz and Stephen P. Diggle writing in Microbial Biofilms: Current Research and Applications : It is now well recognised that populations of bacteria from many Gram-positive and Gram-negative species cooperate and communicate to perform diverse social behaviours including swarming, toxin production and biofilm formation. Communication between bacterial cells involves the production and detection of diffusible read more ...

Recent Advances in Molecular Approaches to Brucella Diagnostics And Epidemiology from Adrian M. Whatmore and Krishna K. Gopaul writing in Brucella : Molecular Microbiology and Genomics : For many years, the diagnosis of brucellosis depended on tried and tested cultural and serological approaches. However, whilst these techniques have been instrumental in successful control and eradication schemes such as the one undertaken in Great Britain, these methods are not ideal. As a highly infectious zoonotic pathogen culture of Brucella is hazardous read more ...

Replication of the Bacillus subtilis Chromosome from Marie-Françoise Noirot-Gros, Patrice Polard and Philippe Noirot writing in Bacillus : Cellular and Molecular Biology (Second edition) : Eubacteria have evolved multicomponent protein machines, termed replisomes, which duplicate their chromosomes rapidly and accurately. Extensive studies in the model bacteria Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis have revealed that in addition to the replication core machinery, other proteins are necessary to form a functional replication fork. read more ...

RNA-mediated Regulation in Bacillus subtilis from Wade C. Winkler writing in Bacillus : Cellular and Molecular Biology (Second edition) : Bacterial genetic regulation is generally assumed to occur at the level of transcription initiation through the use of transcription factors. Regulatory mechanisms that take place post-transcription initiation are sometimes treated as anomalies - as exceptions to the rule. However, the actual degree of usage for post-initiation regulatory strategies in bacteria still remains to be fully determined. As read more ...

The new book on Bunyaviridae edited by Alexander Plyusnin and Richard M. Elliott will be available for dispatch within the next 2 or 3 read more ...

SM1: a Cold-loving Archaeon with Powerful Nano-grappling Hooks from Christine Moissl-Eichinger, Ruth Henneberger and Robert Huber writing in Extremophiles: Microbiology and Biotechnology : The SM1 euryarchaeon represents an extraordinary microorganism: in the surface waters of cold, sulfidic springs, it lives together with filamentous bacteria, forming the so called string-of-pearls community. In the subsurface however, it can grow partner-independently as a "monospecies" biofilm. Even though the SM1 euryarchaeon is still uncultivated in the read more ...

Solid-state NMR of the Bacterial Cell Wall from Catherine Bougault, Sabine Hediger and Jean-Pierre Simorre writing in Bacterial Glycomics: Current Research, Technology and Applications : Liquid-state NMR is traditionally used to provide fine chemical and structural information on soluble fragments, but is limited to biomolecules in the fast rotational tumbling regime. On the other hand, solid-state NMR, unlimited by the molecular size, is extensively applied to polymers, but provides a spectral resolution that is hampered by orientational read more ...

Strategies for Identifying Bacterial Pathogenicity Genes from Raphael H. Valdivia writing in Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms : The identification of factors that enhance the virulence of bacteria is a critical step in understanding the molecular basis for their pathogenesis. Over the last several years, molecular and genetic strategies have been developed to identify bacterial virulence determinants. These approaches, combined with rapidly advancing genome technologies, have allowed investigators to map the read more ...

Structure and Function of the Flavivirus NS5 Protein from Julien Lescar, Siew Pheng Lim and Pei-Yong Shi writing in Molecular Virology and Control of Flaviviruses : The non-structural protein 5 (NS5) of flaviviruses is the most conserved amongst the viral proteins. It is about 900 kDa and bears several enzymatic activities that play vital roles in virus replication. Its N-terminal domain encodes dual N7 and 2'- O methyltransferase activities (MTase), and possibly guanylyltransferase (GTase) involved in RNA cap formation. The C-terminal read more ...

Synthesis of 4-acetamidohexoses in Bacteria: Structural Insights from the Bacillosamine and Nonulosonic Acid Pathways from Allan Matte, Ian C. Schoenhofen, Traian Sulea, Miroslaw Cygler and N. Martin Young writing in Bacterial Glycomics: Current Research, Technology and Applications : Many hexose sugars in bacteria undergo a variety of modifications, including oxidation/reduction, amination and acetylation, as part of biosynthesis into their final biologically-active forms. Enzymes that catalyze these reactions normally utilize read more ...

The Brucella VirB type IV Secretion System from Renee M. Tsolis and David O'Callaghan writing in Brucella : Molecular Microbiology and Genomics : The t ype IV s ecretion s ystem (T4SS) encoded by the virB operon is a key pathogenicity determinant that is highly conserved among Brucella species, and is one of the few "classical" virulence factors identified to date. Since its first description in 1999, work on the VirB T4SS has focused on its role in intracellular survival and persistence, its architecture and assembly in the cell envelope, read more ...

The Actin-like MreB Cytoskeleton from Rut Carballido-López writing in Bacillus : Cellular and Molecular Biology (Second edition) : Prokaryotic cells possess filamentous proteins, analogous to eukaryotic cytoskeletal proteins, that play a key role in the spatial organization of essential cellular processes. The bacterial homologues of actin (MreB, ParM, MamK and AlfA and Alps proteins) are involved in cell shape determination, DNA segregation, cell polarity, cell motility and other functions that require the targeting and accurate read more ...

The Bacterial Life in a Vacuole from Ana Rita Furtado and Agathe Subtil writing in Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms : Several intracellular bacteria survive and multiply inside membrane-bounded compartments called vacuoles. While this lifestyle offers several advantages against host cell defenses, it also imposes important constraints. Pathogens have developed independent strategies to survive within their host, and as a consequence, each "vacuole" is unique to a given bacterium in its composition and behavior. read more ...

The Bacterial Life in the Cytosol from Serge Mostowy and Pascale Cossart writing in Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms : To live inside host cells and replicate, pathogenic bacteria can either establish a niche in a vacuolar compartment or escape to the cytosol. In this chapter, we review our understanding of pathogenic mechanisms to escape and live in the cytosol, and highlight recent studies of bacterial survival strategies to counteract intracytosolic host defences. Further reading: Bacterial Pathogenesis: Molecular read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Microbial Population Genetics : "informative and well written ... ideal for students and is written in a comprehensible modern way ... a comprehensive account of microbial population genetics ... All bioscience graduate students should also read this book ... should be available in all university and public libraries" from K.D. Hyde writing in Fungal Diversity (2010) 45: read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Molecular Phylogeny of Microorganisms : "a neat little hard back book with reasonable size print which is a comprehensive account of the molecular phylogeny in the Prokaryotes ... All bioscience students at ay level should read this book ... should be available in all university and public libraries" from K.D. Hyde writing in Fungal Diversity (2010) 45: read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Aspergillus : Molecular Biology and Genomics : "a nice compact book full of detailed information ... should be available in university libraries and colleges where genomics is taught" from K.D. Hyde ( writing in Fungal Diversity (2010) 45: read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Lactic Acid Bacteria and Bifidobacteria: Current Progress in Advanced Research : "In this comprehensive book, expert international authors review the most recent cutting-edge research" from Food Sci. Technol. Abstr. (2011) read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Hepatitis C: Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development : "This is an ambitious and broad-ranging volume that provides a comprehensive, detailed and accurate account of the current situation in the search for new antiviral agents to treat hepatitis C virus infection. It has been written by an impressive array of the leading researchers in the field and consequently it provides in-depth information about all the direct-acting antivirals that are currently under development, as well as those targeted to host cell read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Salmonella : From Genome to Function : "This is a fast-moving field and it is a credit to the editor, contributors and publishers that updates were made as late as July 2010. It is expensive, but indispensable to the serious student of this organism" from Robert Poole (University of Sheffield, UK) writing in Microbiology read more ...

The Cell Wall of Bacillus subtilis from Dirk-Jan Scheffers writing in Bacillus : Cellular and Molecular Biology (Second edition) : The cell wall of Bacillus subtilis is a rigid structure on the outside of the cell that forms the first barrier between the bacterium and the environment, and at the same time maintains cell shape and withstands the pressure generated by the cell's turgor. In this chapter, the chemical composition of peptidoglycan, teichoic and teichuronic acids, the polymers that comprise the cell wall, and the biosynthetic read more ...

The Ecological Significance of Plant-associated Biofilms from Venkatachalam Lakshmanan, Amutha Sampath Kumar and Harsh P. Bais writing in Microbial Biofilms: Current Research and Applications : Microorganisms have historically been studied as planktonic or free-swimming cells, but most exist as sessile communities attached to surfaces, in multicellular assemblies known as biofilms. In the process of coping with both the pathogenic and beneficial interactions, the rhizosphere of plant roots encourages formation of sessile communities that read more ...

The Exploration of Brucella Transcriptome, From the ORFeome to RNAseq from Juan M. García-Lobo, María C. Rodríguez, Asunción Seoane, Félix J. Sangari, and Ignacio López-Goñi writing in Brucella : Molecular Microbiology and Genomics : In this chapter we will analyze the results available on the characterization of the Brucella transcriptome. After a summary of earlier work on transcription, two technical approaches will be mainly described, on one side the use microarrays, specially that read more ...

Excerpt from a book review of Vaccine Design: Innovative Approaches and Novel Strategies : "This timely book reviews major advances in the field of bacterial vaccines ... essential reading for microbiologists and vaccinologists who want to acquaint themselves with the new approaches used to develop bacterial vaccines." from Marc van Regenmortel (CNRS, Strasbourg, France) writing in Arch. Virol. (2011) read more ...

The Flavivirus NS3 Protein: Structure and Functions from Dahai Luoa, Siew Pheng Lim and Julien Lescar writing in Molecular Virology and Control of Flaviviruses : The non-structural protein 3 (NS3) of flaviviruses is the second most conserved amongst the viral proteins. It bears a molecular mass of 69 kDa and is endowed with multiple functions including proteolytic processing, nucleic acid duplexes unwinding, nucleoside triphosphatase (NTPase) and RNA nucleoside 5' triphosphatase (RTPase). Besides these enzymatic activities which are read more ...