Applied and Environmental Science
Perspective | Applied and Environmental ScienceBasic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory AccidentsOur firm conducted a risk/benefit assessment of “gain-of-function” research, as part of the deliberative process following a U.S. moratorium on the research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses, 2014).
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceBacterial Community Composition Associated with Pyrogenic Organic Matter (Biochar) Varies with Pyrolysis Temperature and Colonization EnvironmentPyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) is widely distributed in soil and fluvial ecosystems and plays an important role in biogeochemical cycling. Many studies have reported changes in soil microbial communities stimulated by PyOM, but very little is known about the microbial communities associated with PyOM. The microbes that colonize PyOMs can participate in the mineralization of PyOM, so changing its structure affects the fate of PyOMs and...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceEffects of Exogenous Yeast and Bacteria on the Microbial Population Dynamics and Outcomes of Olive FermentationsFood fermentations are subject to tremendous selective pressures resulting in the growth and persistence of a limited number of bacterial and fungal taxa. Although these foods are vulnerable to spoilage by unintended contamination of certain microorganisms, or alternatively, can be improved by the deliberate addition of starter culture microbes that accelerate or beneficially modify product outcomes, the impact of either of those...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceCoordinate Regulation of Antimycin and Candicidin BiosynthesisNatural products produced by members of the phylum Actinobacteria underpin many industrially and medically important compounds; however, the majority of the ~30 biosynthetic pathways harbored by an average species are not expressed in the laboratory. Understanding the diversity of regulatory strategies controlling the expression of these pathways is therefore critical if their biosynthetic potential is to be explored for new...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceMicrobial Community Patterns Associated with Automated Teller Machine Keypads in New York CityAutomated teller machine (ATM) keypads represent a specific and unexplored microhabitat for microbial communities. Although the number of built environment and urban microbial ecology studies has expanded greatly in recent years, the majority of research to date has focused on mass transit systems, city soils, and plumbing and ventilation...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceHuman Norovirus Aptamer Exhibits High Degree of Target Conformation-Dependent Binding Similar to That of Receptors and Discriminates Particle FunctionalityHuman noroviruses impose a considerable health burden globally. However, study of their inactivation is still challenging with currently reported cell culture models, as discrimination of infectious viral particles is still difficult. Traditionally, the ability of particles to bind putative carbohydrate receptors is conducted as a proxy for infectivity, but these receptors are inconsistent, expensive, and hard to purify/modify. We...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceShewanella baltica Ecotypes Have Wide Transcriptional Variation under the Same Growth ConditionsEukaryotic studies have shown considerable transcriptional variation among individuals from the same population. It has been suggested that natural variation in eukaryotic gene expression may have significant evolutionary consequences and may explain large-scale phenotypic divergence of closely related species, such as humans and chimpanzees (M.-C. King and A. C. Wilson, Science 188:107–116, 1975,...
Editor's Pick Resource Report | Applied and Environmental ScienceArtificial Seawater Media Facilitate Cultivating Members of the Microbial Majority from the Gulf of MexicoThe difficulty in cultivating many microbial taxa vexes researchers intent on understanding the contributions of these organisms to natural systems, particularly when these organisms are numerically abundant, and many cultivation attempts recover only rare taxa. Efforts to improve this conundrum with marine bacterioplankton have been successful with natural seawater media, but that approach suffers from a number of drawbacks and there...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceImpact of Ammonium on Syntrophic Organohalide-Respiring and Fermenting Microbial CommunitiesContamination with ammonium and chlorinated solvents has been reported in numerous subsurface environments, and these chemicals bring significant challenges for in situ bioremediation. Dehalococcoides mccartyi is able to reduce the chlorinated solvent trichloroethene to the nontoxic end product ethene. Fermentative bacteria are of central importance for...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceIS26-Mediated Formation of Transposons Carrying Antibiotic Resistance GenesIn Gram-negative bacteria, IS26 recruits antibiotic resistance genes into the mobile gene pool by forming transposons carrying many different resistance genes. In addition to replicative transposition, IS26 was recently shown to use a novel conservative movement mechanism in which an incoming IS26 targets a preexisting one. Here, we have demonstrated how IS26-bounded class I transposons can be...