Articles in 2012

This month's Genome Watch highlights new insights into the use of bacteria in industrial processes such as electricity generation and bioremediation.

Invertebrates lack conventional antibody-based immunity but have the capacity to distinguish between symbionts and pathogens. In this Review, Nyholm and Graf describe how the innate immune system of four model invertebrates functions in the establishment and maintenance of bacterial symbioses.

Pseudomonas aeruginosainfection of the airways is a major cause of mortality and morbidity for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Here, Molin and colleagues discuss howP. aeruginosa infection evolves from a state of early, intermittent colonization to a state of chronic infection. Studying the in vivo adaptation of P. aeruginosawill enhance our understanding of bacterial evolution, and could also be important for the development of new therapeutic strategies for CF-associated and other chronic infections.

It has recently emerged that environmental factors such as ambient temperature can strongly influence insect immunity and, thus, shape the outcome of host–parasite interactions. Here, Murdock, Thomas and colleagues argue that, to get more accurate insights into vector resistance, we need to incorporate temperature variation into studies.

Two recent papers provide evidence to support a role for efferocytosis at different points in the host response toMycobacterium tuberculosisinfection.

The interferon-stimulated early response geneSLFN11specifically inhibits HIV protein synthesis in a codon-usage-based manner.

HSV-1 obtains its envelope from the plasma membrane.

Endogenous non-coding RNAs fromEscherichia coli alter Caenorhabditis elegansgene expression to protect the bacterium from foraging by the worm.

Despite low levels of uptake and active engagement, social media and other online tools can be of great benefit to microbiology researchers, and their use is to be encouraged.

This month's Genome Watch describes how sequencing technology is providing insight into the geographical relationships and global travel of bacterial pathogens.

Predicting the virulence of a particular bacterial strain is a complex task that currently cannot be achieved from genome sequence data alone. In this Opinion article, Massey and colleagues present a framework for the construction of a systems biology-based tool that they think could be used to predict virulence phenotypes fromStaphylococcus aureusgenomic sequences using existing technologies.

RepABC family plasmids are found exclusively in alphaproteobacteria. The replication and partitioning proteins of these plasmids are encoded by a single operon, therepABCcassette. Here, Pinto, Pappas and Winans review the regulation of RepABC plasmid replication and partitioning, including the mechanisms that allow plasmid copynumber to be increased in response to external cues.

The intracellular parasiteToxoplasma gondiican infect a range of hosts and occasionally causes serious disease in humans. In this Review, Hunter and Sibley summarize recent studies that implicate rhoptry kinases and a dense-granule protein as mediators of acute virulence in the mouse model. They also describe the complex interplay between these parasite effector proteins and the innate immune system.

Stacking interactions between two rings formed in the KaiC homohexamer drive the cyanobacterial circadian oscillator.

The first report of geranylated RNA nucleotides, which were discovered in the anticodon loops of bacterial tRNAs, and affect codon bias and frameshifting during translation.

Proteus mirabilisis one of the leading causes of catheter-associated urinary tract infections. Here, Armbruster and Mobley review the many recent advances in our understanding ofP. mirabilispathogenicity, including the elucidation of the intricate connections between metabolism, swarming motility and urease activity.