Microorganisms sense and adapt to changes in their environment. When favored nutrients are exhausted, some bacteria may become motile to seek out nutrients, or they may produce enzymes to exploit alternative resources. One example of an extreme survival strategy employed by certain low G+C Gram-positive bacteria is the formation of endospores. This complex developmental…
Bacteria are a subset of prokaryotes and while very different, they still have some common features. Learning Objective Identify common bacterial traits Key Points Bacteria vary from species to species, thus assigning many common traits to bacteria is difficult. Bacterial species are typified by their diversity. Not all prokaryotes are bacteria, some are archaea…
Credit: TheAlphaWolf Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) Getting around in dirt is not easy for bacteria. Those that can move rely on water in which to swim, but soil is full of air pockets and dry particles (boulders, no doubt, to bacteria) that block progress. New research indicates, however, that the filaments of fungi may act as highways that enable soil bacteria to…
Abstract: From biofilm and colony formation in bacteria to wound healing and embryonic development in multicellular organisms, groups of living cells must often move collectively. While considerable study has probed the biophysical mechanisms of how eukaryotic cells generate forces during migration, little such study has been devoted to bacteria, in particular…
Soil bacteria and soil fungi are the start of the soil food web that supports other soil organisms and the functions of a healthy soil. Diverse populations of soil bacteria and fungi can suppress root diseases. Soil bacteria and fungi are encouraged by ground cover and organic matter inputs. Populations of soil bacteria change rapidly depending on moisture, time…
Mosquitoes kill an estimated 700 people a year. If infected with viruses that cause diseases like chikungunya, dengue and Zika, mosquitos can transmit them to humans in one bite. Researchers have now pilot-deployed a new technique to control diseases transmitted by mosquitoes by making use of nature. It is one of the new tools WHO recommends for pilot deployment…
Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef s Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search inSciFinder. Anna Mette Hansen, Gitte Bonke, Camilla Josephine Larsen, Niloofar Yavari, Peter E. Nielsen, and Henrik Franzyk Bioconjugate Chemistry 2016 27 (4), 863-867 Xiao-Wan…
In the future, it will be possible to carry out tests of new drugs on bacteria much more efficiently using microfluidic devices, since each of the hundreds and thousands of droplets moving through the microchannels can act as separate incubators. So far, however, there has been no quick or accurate method of assessing the oxygen conditions in individual microdroplets…
A unique feature of eukaryotic cells, which distinguishes them from bacteria, is the presence of a membrane-bound nucleus that contains the chromosomal DNA (illustrated; image credit). Surprisingly, a nucleus-like structure that forms during viral infection of bacteria is the site of viral DNA replication (link to paper). During infection of Pseudomonas bacteria…
EMBL discovery could yield evolutionary insights and new model organism This electron microscopy image shows Gemmata obscuriglobus . This and other PVC bacteria, the EMBL scientists discovered, have membrane-coat proteins associated with the membranes of subcellular compartments like the one shown in green, in which vesicles can be seen as dark green regions…
