Latest Articles
- Environmental MicrobiologyFunctional Analysis of LanI Mediated Lantibiotic Immunity in Bacillus subtilis.
Food Microbiology | SpotlightMitochondrial Citrate Transporters CtpA and YhmA Are Required for Extracellular Citric Acid Accumulation and Contribute to Cytosolic Acetyl Coenzyme A Generation in Aspergillus luchuensis mut. kawachiiCitrate transport is believed to play a significant role in citrate production by filamentous fungi; however, details of the process remain unclear. This study characterized two citrate transporters from Aspergillus luchuensis mut. kawachii. Biochemical and gene disruption analyses showed that CtpA and YhmA are mitochondrial citrate transporters required for normal hyphal growth, conidium formation, cytosolic acetyl-...
Enzymology and Protein EngineeringStructure-Function Analysis Indicates that an Active-Site Water Molecule Participates in Dimethylsulfoniopropionate Cleavage by DddKThe climate-active gas dimethyl sulfide (DMS) plays an important role in global sulfur cycling and atmospheric chemistry. DMS is mainly produced through the bacterial cleavage of marine dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP). When released into the atmosphere from the oceans, DMS can be photochemically oxidized into DMSO or sulfate aerosols, which form cloud condensation nuclei that influence the reflectivity of clouds and, thereby, global...
Enzymology and Protein EngineeringArtificial Fusion of mCherry Enhances Trehalose Transferase Solubility and StabilityThe heterologous expression of proteins in Escherichia coli is of great relevance for their functional and structural characterization and applications. However, the formation of insoluble inclusion bodies is observed in approximately 70% of all cases, and the subsequent effects can range from reduced soluble protein yields to a complete failure of the expression...
Meeting ReviewSymbiosis Comes of Age at the 10th Biennial Meeting of Wolbachia ResearchersWolbachia pipientis is an alphaproteobacterial obligate intracellular microbe and arguably the most successful infection on our planet, colonizing 40% to 60% of insect species. Wolbachia spp.
Evolutionary and Genomic MicrobiologyUnveiling Genomic Diversity among Members of the Species Bifidobacterium pseudolongum, a Widely Distributed Gut Commensal of the Animal KingdomCurrently, little information exists on the genetics of the B. pseudolongum taxon due to the limited number of sequenced genomes belonging to this species. In order to survey genome variability within this species and explore how members of this taxon evolved as commensals of the animal gut, we isolated and decoded the genomes of 51 newly isolated strains. Comparative...
Microbial Ecology | SpotlightDetection of Natural Products and Their Producers in Ocean SedimentsNatural products are readily isolated from cultured bacteria and exploited for useful purposes, including drug discovery. However, these compounds are rarely detected in the environments from which the bacteria are obtained, thus limiting our understanding of their ecological significance. Here, we used environmental metabolomics to directly assess chemical diversity in marine sediments. We identified numerous metabolites and, in one...