Latest Articles
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyVitamin A Metabolism by Dendritic Cells Triggers an Antimicrobial Response against Mycobacterium tuberculosisTuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death by a single infectious agent worldwide. One factor that contributes to the success of the microbe is the deficiency in immunomodulatory nutrients, such as vitamin A (retinol), which are prevalent in areas where TB is endemic. Clinical trials show that restoration of systemic retinol levels in active TB patients is ineffective in mitigating the disease; however, laboratory studies...
Research Article | Applied and Environmental ScienceAdventitious Virus Detection in Cells by High-Throughput Sequencing of Newly Synthesized RNAs: Unambiguous Differentiation of Cell Infection from Carryover of Viral Nucleic AcidsThe use of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to identify viral contamination of biological products is extremely sensitive and provides a broad range of detection. Nevertheless, viral sequences identified can also be inert. Examples include contamination resulting from reagents or the presence of inactivated viruses in animal-derived components of the cell culture medium. We therefore developed a method that relies on the sequencing of...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologySimultaneous Ribosome Profiling of Human Host Cells Infected with Toxoplasma gondiiToxoplasma gondii is a single-celled parasite that has infected up to one-third of the world’s population. Significant overhauls in gene expression in both the parasite and the host cell accompany parasite invasion, and a better understanding of these changes may lead to the development of new therapeutic agents. In this study, we employed ribosome profiling to...
Research Article | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyJet-Setting Koalas Spread Cryptococcus gattii VGII in AustraliaCryptococcus gattii molecular type VGII is one of the causes of cryptococcosis, a severe fungal disease that is acquired from the environment and affects many host species (including humans and koalas). In Australia, disease caused by C. gattii VGII is largely confined to western and central...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyCell Envelope Integrity and Capsule Characterization of Rhodotorula mucilaginosa Strains from Clinical and Environmental SourcesCurrently, there is very little known about the phenotypic variability within species of Rhodotorula strains and the role of their capsule. Cryptococcus neoformans has been considered the only encapsulated human fungal pathogen, but as more individuals come to live in states of immunocompromised health, they are more susceptible to fungal infections,...
Resource Report | Synthetic BiologyPlasmids for Independently Tunable, Low-Noise Expression of Two GenesMicrobiologists often express foreign proteins in bacteria in order study them or to use bacteria as a microbial factory. Usually, this requires controlling the number of foreign proteins expressed in each cell, but for many common protein expression systems, it is difficult to “tune” protein expression without large cell-to-cell variation in expression levels (called “noise” in protein expression). This work describes two protein...
Research Article | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceAgent-Based Modeling Demonstrates How Local Chemotactic Behavior Can Shape Biofilm ArchitectureMost bacteria exist in aggregated, three-dimensional structures called biofilms. Although biofilms play important ecological roles in natural and engineered settings, they can also pose societal problems, for example, when they grow in plumbing systems or on medical implants. Understanding the processes that promote the growth and disassembly of biofilms could lead to better strategies to manage these structures. We had previously shown...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyThe AGC Kinase SsAgc1 Regulates Sporisorium scitamineum Mating/Filamentation and PathogenicityThe AGC signaling pathway represents a conserved distinct signaling pathway in regulation of fungal differentiation and virulence, while it has not been identified or characterized in the sugarcane smut fungus Sporisorium scitamineum. In this study, we identified a PAS domain-containing AGC kinase, SsAgc1, in S. scitamineum. Functional analysis revealed that SsAgc1 plays a regulatory role on the fungal dimorphic switch...
Research Article | Clinical Science and EpidemiologyTransition of Bacterial Diversity and Composition in Tongue Microbiota during the First Two Years of LifeEvaluating the development of oral microbiota during infancy is important for understanding the subsequent colonization of bacterial species and the process of formation of mature microbiota in the oral cavity. We examined tongue microbiota longitudinally collected from 8 infants and found that drastic compositional shifts in tongue microbiota occur before the age of 1 year, and then bacterial diversity and overall bacterial composition...
Research Article | Host-Microbe BiologyStage-Specific and Selective Delivery of Caged Azidosugars into the Intracellular Parasite Toxoplasma gondii by Using an Esterase-Ester Pair TechniqueSelective delivery of small molecules into intracellular parasites is particularly problematic due to the presence of multiple membranes and surrounding host cells. We have devised a method that can deliver caged molecules into an intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, that express an uncaging enzyme in a stage-specific manner without affecting host cell biology....