Articles

First isolation and further characterization of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) O157:H45 strains from cattle

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), mainly causing infantile diarrhoea, represents one of at least six different categories of diarrheagenic E. coli with corresponding distinct pathogenic schemes. The mecha...

Authors: Roger Stephan, Nicole Borel, Claudio Zweifel, Miguel Blanco and Jesús E Blanco

Bacterial variations on the methionine salvage pathway

The thiomethyl group of S-adenosylmethionine is often recycled as methionine from methylthioadenosine. The corresponding pathway has been unravelled in Bacillus subtilis. However methylthioadenosine is subjected ...

Authors: Agnieszka Sekowska, Valérie Dénervaud, Hiroki Ashida, Karine Michoud, Dieter Haas, Akiho Yokota and Antoine Danchin

C. trachomatis-infection accelerates metabolism of phosphatidylcholine derived from low density lipoprotein but does not affect phosphatidylcholine secretion from hepatocytes

Chlamydia trachomatis is a prevalent sexually transmitted disease and the leading cause of infectious blindness in developing nations. It was not known if C. trachomatis-infection influenced metabolism of lipopro...

Authors: Grant M Hatch and Grant McClarty

Immune response to Mycoplasma pneumoniae P1 and P116 in patients with atypical pneumonia analyzed by ELISA

Serology is often used for the diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae. It is important to identify specific antigens that can distinguish between the presence or absence of antibodies against M. pneumoniae. The two p...

Authors: Mette Drasbek, Pernille K Nielsen, Kenneth Persson, Svend Birkelund and Gunna Christiansen

Bacillus subtilis GlcK activity requires cysteines within a motif that discriminates microbial glucokinases into two lineages

Bacillus subtilis glucokinase (GlcK) (GenBank NP_390365) is an ATP-dependent kinase that phosphorylates glucose to glucose 6-phosphate. The GlcK protein has very low sequence identity (13.7%) to the Escherichia c...

Authors: Lili R Mesak, Felix M Mesak and Michael K Dahl

Comparison of PCR and clinical laboratory tests for diagnosing H. pylori infection in pediatric patients

Histology and/or culture are generally considered the gold standard for the detection of H. pylori infection. Especially in children, these tests may result in a false negative outcome because of patchy distribut...

Authors: Kathleen MB Vinette, Kathleen M Gibney, Roy Proujansky and Paul T Fawcett

Analysis of the lambdoid prophage element e14 in the E. coli K-12 genome

Many sequenced bacterial genomes harbor phage-like elements or cryptic prophages. These elements have been implicated in pathogenesis, serotype conversion and phage immunity. The e14 element is a defective lam...

Authors: Preeti Mehta, Sherwood Casjens and Sankaran Krishnaswamy

Sucrose density gradient centrifugation and cross-flow filtration methods for the production of arbovirus antigens inactivated by binary ethylenimine

Sucrose density gradient centrifugation and cross-flow filtration methods have been developed and standardised for the safe and reproducible production of inactivated arbovirus antigens which are appropriate f...

Authors: Alyssa T Pyke, Debra A Phillips, Teck F Chuan and Greg A Smith

The single-stranded DNA-binding protein of Deinococcus radiodurans

Deinococcus radiodurans R1 is one of the most radiation-resistant organisms known and is able to repair an unusually large amount of DNA damage without induced mutation. Single-stranded DNA-binding (SSB) protein ...

Authors: Julie Malia Eggington, Nami Haruta, Elizabeth Anne Wood and Michael Matthew Cox

Restricted changes in major surface protein-2 (msp2) transcription after prolonged in vitro passage of Anaplasma phagocytophilum

Anaplasma phagocytophilum strains often vary in Msp2 expression, a situation assumed to be related to immune evasion. However, Msp2 is also an adhesin, and little is known about the role of endogenous msp2 transc...

Authors: Diana G Scorpio, Karen Caspersen, Hiroyuki Ogata, Jinho Park and J Stephen Dumler

Mycophenolate mofetil inhibits the development of Coxsackie B3-virus-induced myocarditis in mice

Viral replication as well as an immunopathological component are assumed to be involved in the development of coxsackie B virus (CBV)-induced myocarditis. We observed that mycophenolic acid (MPA), the active m...

Authors: Elizaveta Padalko, Erik Verbeken, Patrick Matthys, Joeri L Aerts, Erik De Clercq and Johan Neyts

A DNA element recognised by the molybdenum-responsive transcription factor ModE is conserved in Proteobacteria, green sulphur bacteria and Archaea

The transition metal molybdenum is essential for life. Escherichia coli imports this metal into the cell in the form of molybdate ions, which are taken up via an ABC transport system. In E. coli and other Proteob...

Authors: David J Studholme and Richard N Pau

Diversity in coding tandem repeats in related Neisseria spp.

Tandem repeats contained within coding regions can mediate phase variation when the repeated units change the reading frame of the coding sequence in a copy number dependent manner. Coding tandem repeats are t...

Authors: Philip Jordan, Lori AS Snyder and Nigel J Saunders

Functional profiling of mercuric reductase (mer A) genes in biofilm communities of a technical scale biocatalyzer

Bacterial mercury resistance is based on enzymatic reduction of ionic mercury to elemental mercury and has recently been demonstrated to be applicable for industrial wastewater clean-up. The long-term monitori...

Authors: Andreas DM Felske, Wanda Fehr, Björg V Pauling, Harald von Canstein and Irene Wagner-Döbler

Type III secretion proteins PcrV and PcrG from Pseudomonas aeruginosa form a 1:1 complex through high affinity interactions

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an increasingly prevalent opportunistic pathogen, utilizes a type III secretion system for injection of toxins into host cells in order to initiate infection. A crucial component of this s...

Authors: Max Nanao, Sylvie Ricard-Blum, Anne Marie Di Guilmi, David Lemaire, David Lascoux, Jacqueline Chabert, Ina Attree and Andréa Dessen

Cloaked similarity between HIV-1 and SARS-CoV suggests an anti-SARS strategy

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a febrile respiratory illness. The disease has been etiologically linked to a novel coronavirus that has been named the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), whose...

Authors: Yossef Kliger and Erez Y Levanon

Evaluation of five DNA extraction methods for purification of DNA from atherosclerotic tissue and estimation of prevalence of Chlamydia pneumoniae in tissue from a Danish population undergoing vascular repair

To date PCR detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae DNA in atherosclerotic lesions from Danish patients has been unsuccessful. To establish whether non-detection was caused by a suboptimal DNA extraction method, we tes...

Authors: Tina Mygind, Lars Østergaard, Svend Birkelund, Jes S Lindholt and Gunna Christiansen

The dynamic behavior of bacterial macrofibers growing with one end prevented from rotating: variation in shaft rotation along the fiber's length, and supercoil movement on a solid surface toward the constrained end

Bacterial macrofibers twist as they grow, writhe, supercoil and wind up into plectonemic structures (helical forms the individual filaments of which cannot be taken apart without unwinding) that eventually car...

Authors: Neil H Mendelson, Patrick Shipman, Darshan Roy, Liling Chen and John J Thwaites

Survival in acidic and alcoholic medium of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and non-O157:H7 isolated in Argentina

In spite of Argentina having one of the highest frequencies of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), the incidence of Escherichia coli O157:H7 is low in comparison to rates registered in the US. Isolation of several...

Authors: Pablo M Molina, Alberto E Parma and Marcelo E Sanz

Effects of disruption of heat shock genes on susceptibility of Escherichia coli to fluoroquinolones

It is well known that expression of certain bacterial genes responds rapidly to such stimuli as exposure to toxic chemicals and physical agents. It is generally believed that the proteins encoded in these gene...

Authors: Yuko Yamaguchi, Toshifumi Tomoyasu, Akiko Takaya, Mizue Morioka and Tomoko Yamamoto

Brucella 'HOOF-Prints': strain typing by multi-locus analysis of variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs)

Currently, there are very few tools available for subtyping Brucella isolates for epidemiological trace-back. Subtyping is difficult because of the genetic homogeneity within the genus. Sequencing of the genomes ...

Authors: Betsy J Bricker, Darla R Ewalt and Shirley M Halling

The three extra-cellular zinc metalloproteinases of Streptococcus pneumoniae have a different impact on virulence in mice

Streptococcus pneumoniae possesses large zinc metalloproteinases on its surface. To analyse the importance in virulence of three of these metalloproteinases, intranasal challenge of MF1 outbred mice was carried o...

Authors: Damiana Chiavolini, Guido Memmi, Tiziana Maggi, Francesco Iannelli, Gianni Pozzi and Marco R Oggioni

Annotation and evolutionary relationships of a small regulatory RNA gene micF and its target ompF in Yersinia species

micF RNA, a small regulatory RNA found in bacteria, post-transcriptionally regulates expression of outer membrane protein F (OmpF) by interaction with the ompF mRNA 5'UTR. Phylogenetic data can be useful for RNA/...

Authors: Nicholas Delihas

Characterisation of methionine adenosyltransferase from Mycobacterium smegmatis and M. tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains a serious world-wide health threat which requires the characterisation of novel drug targets for the development of future antimycobacterials. One of the key obstacles in the definition of...

Authors: Bradley J Berger and Marvin H Knodel

Phenotypic mixing and hiding may contribute to memory in viral quasispecies

In a number of recent experiments with food-and-mouth disease virus, a deleterious mutant, RED, was found to avoid extinction and remain in the population for long periods of time. Since RED characterizes the ...

Authors: Claus O Wilke and Isabel S Novella

Genomic homogeneity between Mycobacterium avium subsp. avium and Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis belies their divergent growth rates

Mycobacterium avium subspecies avium (M. avium) is frequently encountered in the environment, but also causes infections in animals and immunocompromised patients. In contrast, Mycobacterium avium subspecies para...

Authors: John P Bannantine, Qing Zhang, Ling-Ling Li and Vivek Kapur

Profilin is required for viral morphogenesis, syncytium formation, and cell-specific stress fiber induction by respiratory syncytial virus

Actin is required for the gene expression and morphogenesis of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a clinically important Pneumovirus of the Paramyxoviridae family. In HEp-2 cells, RSV infection also induces actin...

Authors: Vira Bitko, Anja Oldenburg, Nicolle E Garmon and Sailen Barik

Presence and expression of hydrogenase specific C-terminal endopeptidases in cyanobacteria

Hydrogenases catalyze the simplest of all chemical reactions: the reduction of protons to molecular hydrogen or vice versa. Cyanobacteria can express an uptake, a bidirectional or both NiFe-hydrogenases. Maturati...

Authors: Röbbe Wünschiers, Mehtap Batur and Peter Lindblad

A novel Leishmania infantum nuclear phosphoprotein Lepp12 which stimulates IL1-beta synthesis in THP-1 transfectants

We report cloning and characterization of a novel Leishmania infantum protein which we termed Lepp12, and we examine its possible implication in the interference with intramacrophage signaling pathways.

Authors: Konstantina Fragaki, Bernard Ferrua, Baharia Mograbi, Julie Waldispühl and Joanna Kubar

Ebola virus infection inversely correlates with the overall expression levels of promyelocytic leukaemia (PML) protein in cultured cells

Ebola virus causes severe, often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans. The mechanism of escape from cellular anti-viral mechanisms is not yet fully understood. The promyelocytic leukaemia (PML) associated nuclear...

Authors: Asa Szekely Björndal, Laszlo Szekely and Fredrik Elgh

Staphylococcus aureus - induced tumor necrosis factor - related apoptosis - inducing ligand expression mediates apoptosis and caspase-8 activation in infected osteoblasts

Staphylococcus aureus infection of normal osteoblasts induces expression of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL).

Authors: Emily H Alexander, F Andrea Rivera, Ian Marriott, Juan Anguita, Kenneth L Bost and Michael C Hudson

Potassium ferrate [Fe(VI)] does not mediate self-sterilization of a surrogate mars soil

Martian soil is thought to be enriched with strong oxidants such as peroxides and/or iron in high oxidation states that might destroy biological materials. There is also a high flux of ultraviolet radiation at...

Authors: Ronald L Crawford, Andrzej Paszczynski and Lisa Allenbach

New Knowledge from Old: In silico discovery of novel protein domains in Streptomyces coelicolor

Streptomyces coelicolor has long been considered a remarkable bacterium with a complex life-cycle, ubiquitous environmental distribution, linear chromosomes and plasmids, and a huge range of pharmaceutically usef...

Authors: Corin Yeats, Stephen Bentley and Alex Bateman

Molecular cloning and characterization of Escherichia coli K12 ygjG gene

Putrescine is the intermediate product of arginine decarboxylase pathway in Escherichia coli which can be used as an alternative nitrogen source. Transaminase and dehydrogenase enzymes seem to be implicated in th...

Authors: Natalya N Samsonova, Sergey V Smirnov, Irina B Altman and Leonid R Ptitsyn

Characterization of the nodulation plasmid encoded chemoreceptor gene mcpG from Rhizobium leguminosarum

In general, chemotaxis in Rhizobium has not been well characterized. Methyl accepting chemotaxis proteins are sensory proteins important in chemotaxis of numerous bacteria, but their involvement in Rhizobium chem...

Authors: Christopher K Yost, Kirsten T Clark, Kate L Del Bel and Michael F Hynes

Analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences and circulating cell-free DNA from plasma of chronic fatigue syndrome and non-fatigued subjects

The association of an infectious agent with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been difficult and is further complicated by the lack of a known lesion or diseased tissue. Cell-free plasma DNA could serve as a ...

Authors: Suzanne D Vernon, Sanjay K Shukla, Jennifer Conradt, Elizabeth R Unger and William C Reeves

Intrastrain and interstrain genetic variation within a paralogous gene family in Chlamydia pneumoniae

Chlamydia pneumoniae causes human respiratory diseases and has recently been associated with atherosclerosis. Analysis of the three recently published C. pneumoniae genomes has led to the identification of a new ...

Authors: Wasna Viratyosin, Lee Ann Campbell, Cho-Chou Kuo and Daniel D Rockey

High resolution, on-line identification of strains from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex based on tandem repeat typing

Currently available reference methods for the molecular epidemiology of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex either lack sensitivity or are still too tedious and slow for routine application. Recently, tandem r...

Authors: Philippe Le Flèche, Michel Fabre, France Denoeud, Jean-Louis Koeck and Gilles Vergnaud

The expression, processing and localization of polymorphic membrane proteins in Chlamydia pneumoniae strain CWL029

Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria, which are important human pathogens. Genome sequences of C. trachomatis and C. pneumoniae have revealed the presence of a Chlamydia specific gene family encoding po...

Authors: Brian Berg Vandahl, Anna Sofie Pedersen, Kris Gevaert, Arne Holm, Joël Vandekerckhove, Gunna Christiansen and Svend Birkelund

Dynamics of success and failure in phage and antibiotic therapy in experimental infections

In 1982 Smith and Huggins showed that bacteriophages could be at least as effective as antibiotics in preventing mortality from experimental infections with a capsulated E. coli (K1) in mice. Phages that requi...

Authors: J J Bull, Bruce R Levin, Terry DeRouin, Nina Walker and Craig A Bloch

Sulphonamide resistant commensal Neisseria with alterations in the dihydropteroate synthase can be isolated from carriers not exposed to sulphonamides

Development of sulphonamide resistance in Neisseria meningitidis has been suggested to involve horizontal DNA-transfer from a commensal Neisseria species. In this study, we isolated commensal Neisseria from throa...

Authors: Yvonne Qvarnström and Göte Swedberg

Colony shape as a genetic trait in the pattern-forming Bacillus mycoides

Bacillus mycoides Flügge, a Gram-positive, non-motile soil bacterium assigned to Bacillus cereus group, grows on agar as chains of cells linked end to end, forming radial filaments curving clock- or counter-clock...

Authors: Carmen Di Franco, Elena Beccari, Tiziana Santini, Giuseppe Pisaneschi and Giorgio Tecce

Recognition of secretory proteins in Escherichia coli requires signals in addition to the signal sequence and slow folding

The Sec-dependent protein export apparatus of Escherichia coli is very efficient at correctly identifying proteins to be exported from the cytoplasm. Even bacterial strains that carry prl mutations, which allow e...

Authors: Ipsita Mallik, Margaret A Smith and Ann M Flower

Detection and characterization of the S. typhimurium HilA protein

Virulence genes on Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI1) are coordinately regulated by HilA, a member of the OmpR/ToxR family of transcription factors. Although a great deal is known about the complex regulati...

Authors: Christine R Rodriguez, Lisa M Schechter and Catherine A Lee

Mycosin-1, a subtilisin-like serine protease of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is cell wall-associated and expressed during infection of macrophages

Exported proteases are commonly associated with virulence in bacterial pathogens, yet there is a paucity of information regarding their role in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. There are five genes (mycP1-5) present w...

Authors: Joel A Dave, Nico C Gey van Pittius, Albert D Beyers, Mario RW Ehlers and Gordon D Brown

Hepatitis C virus whole genome position weight matrix and robust primer design

The high degree of sequence heterogeneity found in Hepatitis C virus (HCV) isolates, makes robust nucleic acid-based assays difficult to generate. Polymerase chain reaction based techniques, require efficient ...

Authors: Ping Qiu, Xiao-Yan Cai, Luquan Wang, Jonathan R Greene and Bruce Malcolm

Physiological function of the maltose operon regulator, MalR, in Lactococcus lactis

Maltose metabolism is initiated by an ATP-dependent permease system in Lactococcus lactis. The subsequent degradation of intracellular maltose is performed by the concerted action of P_i-dependent maltose phosphor...

Authors: Ulrika Andersson and Peter Rådström

Bacterial discrimination by means of a universal array approach mediated by LDR (ligase detection reaction)

PCR amplification of bacterial 16S rRNA genes provides the most comprehensive and flexible means of sampling bacterial communities. Sequence analysis of these cloned fragments can provide a qualitative and qua...

Authors: Elena Busti, Roberta Bordoni, Bianca Castiglioni, Paolo Monciardini, Margherita Sosio, Stefano Donadio, Clarissa Consolandi, Luigi Rossi Bernardi, Cristina Battaglia and Gianluca De Bellis

HIV-1 expression induces cyclin D₁ expression and pRb phosphorylation in infected podocytes: cell-cycle mechanisms contributing to the proliferative phenotype in HIV-associated nephropathy

The aberrant cell-cycle progression of HIV-1-infected kidney cells plays a major role in the pathogenesis of HIV-associated nephropathy, however the mechanisms whereby HIV-1 induces infected glomerular podocyt...

Authors: Peter J Nelson, Masaaki Sunamoto, Mohammad Husain and Irwin H Gelman

Erratum to: Interaction of the Yersinia pestis type III regulatory proteins LcrG and LcrV occurs at a hydrophobic interface: correction

Authors: Jyl S Matson and Matthew L Nilles