Microbiology

Tests conducted by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading.   The "superbugs" were carrying New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), a multidrug-resistant gene first identified in India in 2010, in wastewater even after being disinfected by chlorination. Significant levels of NDM-1 were found in the effluent released to the environment and even higher levels in dewatered sludge applied to soils.  "It's scary,"…

Prisons have started to cut back on fruits and some vegetables for felons because they have discovered how to make booze with them.  It isn't as great as it sounds. Emergency unit physicians have report severe botulism poisoning from a batch of potato-based "wine" (also known as pruno) cooked up in a Utah prison. The only thing crazier than inject botulism into your face is putting it in your stomach. Eight patients came to the emergency department from a Utah prison with trouble swallowing, double vision, difficulty speaking and weakness approximately 54 hours after ingestion of the…

Terroir is the term for the unique blend of a vineyard’s soils, water and climate that impacts the flavor and quality of wine. These unique microbial inputs are key to regional wine fermentations. A new study from UC Davis, MicroTrek, Inc. and Constellation Brands Inc. offers evidence that grapes and the wines they produce are also the product of an unseen but fairly predictable microbial terroir, itself shaped by the climate and geography of the region, vineyard and even individual vine. Results from DNA sequencing revealed that there are patterns in the fungal and bacterial communities that…

Modern science has made it possible to synthesize increasingly targeted drugs but Ma Nature is not out of it yet - it just took science to discover what nature could do. Pyridomycin, a substance produced by non-pathogenic soil bacteria, has been found to be a potent antibiotic against a related strain of bacteria that cause tuberculosis.  The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne scientists who discovered this property now have a better understanding of how its complex, three-dimensional structure allows it to act simultaneously on two parts of a key enzyme in the tuberculosis…

Viruses keep it simple and that makes them smart - though they are too elementary to be able to reproduce by themselves, they exploit the reproductive "machinery" of cells by inserting pieces of their own DNA so that it is transcribed by the host cell. To do this, they first have to inject their own genetic material into the cells they infect. An international team of researchers has studied how this occurs and how long it takes for this process to be completed. Cristian Micheletti from SISSA (the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste) and colleagues constructed a computer…

Laboratory animals fed a modified version of a common genetically modified probiotic were completely cured of intestinal worms that belong to a family of parasites that currently infect 1.5 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, according to new research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).  Hamsters were deliberately infected with hookworms and then divided into two groups. One group received a common strain of the bacteria Bacillus subtilis, which is often marketed as a "probiotic" — a dietary…

A new integrative medicine paper examines the role of gut bacteria on the maturation of the immune system and claims evidence supporting the use of butyrate as therapy for inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease, based on mouse models. Butyrate, a by-product of the digestion of dietary fiber by gut microbes, is believed to act as an epigenetic switch that boosts the immune system by inducing the production of regulatory T cells in the gut.  Some studies have shown that patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease lack butyrate-producing bacteria and have lower levels of…

Mapping the rise of life during the period of Earth's early history is challenging. Earth's oldest sedimentary rocks are not only rare, but have almost always altered by hydrothermal and tectonic activity. But sometimes there are dramatic finds. A new study has revealed the well-preserved remnants of a complex ecosystem in a nearly 3.5 billion-year-old sedimentary rock sequence in Australia.  The Pilbara district of Western Australia constitutes one of the famous geological regions that allow insight into the early evolution of life. Mound-like deposits created by ancient photosynthetic…

A new study has affirmed the hypothesis that microorganisms which produce methane swim toward the hydrogen gas they need to stay alive. In the process, the researchers discovered hydrogenotaxis, the movement of a biological cell toward hydrogen gas, and noticed that the cells were especially speedy when starving. They also made a video of the microorganism rushing toward its next meal. The methane-producing organism, Methanococcus maripaludis , lives without oxygen, and it's classified as Archaea, one of the three domains of life. Since methanogenic Archaea live in anaerobic environments,…

Researchers have linked Prevotella copri, a species of intestinal bacteria, to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, the first demonstration in humans that the chronic inflammatory joint disease may be mediated in part by specific intestinal bacteria. Rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that attacks joint tissue and causes painful, often debilitating stiffness and swelling, affects 1.3 million Americans. It strikes twice as many women as men and its cause remains unknown although genetic and environmental factors are thought to play a role. It is treated with an assortment of…