Biology News Net - Microbiology

How herpesvirus invades nervous system

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:11:29 -0500

Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified a component of the herpesvirus that "hijacks" machinery inside human cells, allowing the virus to rapidly and successfully invade the nervous system upon initial exposure.

Resurrection of 3-billion-year-old antibiotic-resistance proteins

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:55:40 -0500

Scientists are reporting "laboratory resurrections" of several 2-3-billion-year-old proteins that are ancient ancestors of the enzymes that enable today's antibiotic-resistant bacteria to shrug off huge doses of penicillins, cephalosporins and other modern drugs. The achievement, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens the door to a scientific "replay" of the evolution of antibiotic resistance with an eye to finding new ways to cope with the problem.

Mount Sinai researchers discover how the flu virus tells time

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:16:06 -0500

Scientists have discovered that that the flu virus can essentially tell time, thereby giving scientists the ability to reset the virus' clock and combat it in more effective ways. According to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the flu knows how much time it has to multiply, infect other cells, and spread to another human being. If it leaves a cell too soon, the virus is too weak. If it leaves too late, the immune system has time to kill the virus.

New insights into a virus proteome

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:59:14 -0500

This is a detailed 3D-structure of the herpes virus: the capsid or protein shell, which contains the virus DNA, is surrounded by several envelope layers. The genome encodes the complete information needed by an organism, including that required for protein production. Viruses, which are up to a thousand times smaller than human cells, have considerably smaller genomes. Using a type of herpesvirus as a model system, the scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and their collaboration partners at the University of California in San Francisco have shown that the genome of this virus contains much more information than previously assumed. The researchers identified several hundred novel proteins, many of which were surprisingly small.

Deciphering bacterial doomsday decisions

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:59:14 -0500

Like a homeowner prepping for a hurricane, the bacterium Bacillus subtilis uses a long checklist to prepare for survival in hard times. In a new study, scientists at Rice University and the University of Houston uncovered an elaborate mechanism that allows B. subtilis to begin preparing for survival, even as it delays the ultimate decision of whether to "hunker down" and withdraw into a hardened spore.

Study reveals the proteins expressed by human cytomegalovirus

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:53:46 -0500

New findings reveal the surprisingly complex protein-coding capacity of the human cytomegalovirus, or HCMV, and provide the first steps toward understanding how the virus manipulates human cells during infection. The genome of the HCMV was first sequenced over 20 years ago, but researchers have now investigated the proteome—the complete set of expressed proteins—of this common pathogen as well.

Bacterial DNA sequence used to map an infection outbreak

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:51:11 -0500

For the first time, researchers have used DNA sequencing to help bring an infectious disease outbreak in a hospital to a close.

Viruses act like 'self-packing suitcases'

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:56:37 -0500

Researchers at the University of Leeds have identified a crucial stage in the lifecycle of simple viruses like polio and the common cold that could open a new front in the war on viral disease.

Large bacterial population colonized land 2.75 billion years ago

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:18:02 -0500

A drill core from the 2.5 billion-year-old Mount McRae Shale formation in Western Australia, which originally was fine-grained ocean sediment, shows high concentrations of sulfide and molybdenum. That supports the... There is evidence that some microbial life had migrated from the Earth's oceans to land by 2.75 billion years ago, though many scientists believe such land-based life was limited because the ozone layer that shields against ultraviolet radiation did not form until hundreds of millions years later.

Common parasite may trigger suicide attempts

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 02:03:19 -0500

__IMAGE_2 A parasite thought to be harmless and found in many people may actually be causing subtle changes in the brain, leading to suicide attempts.