Applied and Environmental Science
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...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceCulture-Independent Metagenomic Surveillance of Commercially Available Probiotics with High-Throughput Next-Generation SequencingThe rapidly growing supplement industry operates without a formal premarket approval process. Consumers rely on product labels to be accurate and true. Those products containing live microbials report both identity and viability on most product labels. This study used next-generation sequencing technology as an analytical tool in conjunction with classic culture methods to examine the validity of the labels on supplement products...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental SciencePurification and Characterization of Botulinum Neurotoxin FA from a Genetically Modified Clostridium botulinum StrainBotulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), produced by anaerobic bacteria, are the cause of the potentially deadly, neuroparalytic disease botulism. BoNTs have been classified into seven serotypes, serotypes A to G, based upon their selective neutralization by homologous antiserum, which is relevant for clinical and diagnostic purposes. Even though supportive care dramatically reduces the death rate of botulism, the only pharmaceutical intervention...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceAntibiotic Resistance in Animal and Environmental Samples Associated with Small-Scale Poultry Farming in Northwestern EcuadorIn developing countries, small-scale poultry farming employing antibiotics as growth promoters is being advanced as an inexpensive source of protein and income. Here, we present the results of a large ecoepidemiological study examining patterns of antibiotic resistance (AR) in E. coli isolates from small-scale poultry production environments versus domestic...