{"title":"Candidate Antimicrobials, Enhancers, Potentiators, Combos Plus New Probe","authors":"J. Fox","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.375.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.375.1","url":null,"abstract":"Several new antibacterial candidates shared the stage with promising agents that augment antimicrobial drugs, combination agents that work better than their separate components, and antifungal candidate agents—presented this year during the poster summary session “Early New Antimicrobial Agents,” convened at the 2016 ASM Microbe Meeting, held in Boston, Mass., in June. In addition, participants learned briefly about a new imaging approach for following the course of infections and the drugs or drug candidates that are used and being developed, respectively, to treat them. Although these new antimicrobial agents appear potentially useful, none of them looks startling or could be called a breakthrough.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"17 1","pages":"375-377"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/MICROBE.11.375.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eat Prey, Love? Diverse Soil Cercozoa Tell Tales of Climate Change","authors":"C. Potera","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.378.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.378.1","url":null,"abstract":"The enormous species diversity of Cercozoa, important soil protozoans that feed on bacteria there, might provide a means for following climate change trends, according to Flemming Ekelund at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his collaborators. Thus, as soil dries with the changes in climate, species composition within the Cercozoa will also likely change, affecting further decomposition within this environmental niche, they say. Meanwhile, high-throughput sequencing of genomic material from soil samples can be used to follow protozoan predators and their prey. Details appeared 8 March 2016 in The ISME Journal (doi:10.1038/ismej.2016.31).","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"378-379"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microbes as Intein Havens: These microbial, intron-like polypeptides are self-splicing elements that remove themselves posttranslationally from their host proteins","authors":"Cathleen M. Green, M. Belfort","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.388.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.388.1","url":null,"abstract":"Inteins are polypeptide escape artists, with an extraordinary ability to excise themselves from fully folded proteins without leaving a trace. Inteins are best described as protein introns, self-splicing elements that remove themselves posttranslationally from their host proteins. They occur in all three domains of life—archaea, bacteria, and single-celled eukaryotes (Fig. 1A). Even so, inteins are rarely discussed among microbiologists, but this relative silence is about to be broken.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"388-393"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Monocercomonoides sp. Shed Their Mitochondria Naturally","authors":"B. Digregorio","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.379.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.379.1","url":null,"abstract":"The unicellular Monocercomonoides sp. lacks traces of mitochondria even though it is considered a standard eukaryotic cell in other respects, according to Anna Karnkowska at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and her collaborators from Dalhousie University in Halifax, the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, all in Canada. Thus, the mitochondrial iron-sulfur cluster assembly pathway, thought to be conserved in all eukaryotic cells is missing, and, in this case, replaced by a cytosolic sulfur mobilization system (SUF) acquired from bacteria—making Monocercomonoides sp. lineage the first known naturally amitochondriate eukaryote. Details appeared May 23, 2016 in Current Biology (doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.053).","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"379-379"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Seemed Important in 1966?: Review of a major congress five decades ago provides insight into what microbiologists then rated as key issues. How much has changed?","authors":"B. Dixon","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.372.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.372.1","url":null,"abstract":"Half a century ago, I was in Moscow, in the then Soviet Union, attending an International Congress of Microbiology. Although the passing of time seems unbelievable, the interval provides an opportunity to reconsider key topics which the organizers chose to focus attention on, since they were then major concerns for the profession. Some of those topics now appear surprising, some have declined in importance, and others have become more so.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"372-373"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Immune Responses to Viruses and Vaccines Differ Between Men and Women: Sex hormones can trigger differential responses between females and males to infectious agents and vaccines","authors":"Shannon Weiman","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.383.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.383.1","url":null,"abstract":"Human sex differences extend beyond anatomy to encompass important immune system functions, predisposing men and women to respond differently to infectious diseases. For instance, estrogens tend to promote stronger inflammatory, cellular, and humoral immune responses in women than men. While robust immune responses to pathogens can benefit the host, overexuberant inflammatory responses can damage host tissues—predisposing women more than men to develop immunopathologies, comorbidities, autoimmune disorders, and adverse reactions to vaccines, among other deleterious effects.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"383-387"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/MICROBE.11.383.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microbiomes Let Giant Shipworms, Desert Woodrats Conduct Exotic Life Styles","authors":"D. Holzman","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.374.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.374.1","url":null,"abstract":"Kuphus polythalamia, a giant among the bivalve shipworms, or Teredinidae, departs from other family members in terms of how it relies on its microbiome to survive in a challenging environment, according to Daniel Distel of Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. Exotic in other ways, woodrats living in Southwestern U.S. deserts rely on their microbiomes to thrive on plants that harbor otherwise harmful toxins, according to Denise Dearing of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They and other scientists presented their recent findings at a symposium, “Expanding Host Capabilities through the Microbiome,” during the 2016 ASM Microbe Meeting, held last June in Boston.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"374-375"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microbe Mentor:How Important Is a Postdoc for a Teaching Career?","authors":"A. Vollmer, V. Balke, C. Frantz, Thomas E Hanson","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.362.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.362.1","url":null,"abstract":"How critical is a postdoc if i want to teach at a primarily undergraduate or 2-year institution?","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"362-364"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/MICROBE.11.362.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beating the Odds: the Journey of an African-American Microbiologist: From de facto apartheid as a youth to a productive career in research, focused on microbiology and immunology","authors":"H. Johnson","doi":"10.1128/MICROBE.11.343.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/MICROBE.11.343.1","url":null,"abstract":"I am an internationally recognized immunologist and microbiologist, who has had the good fortune to contribute significantly to research within my discipline. Before I could do so, I had to escape the confines of the American version of an apartheid system, into which I was born in 1936, near Annapolis, Md. This part of the country was then unabashedly racist and remained so throughout the years of my primary and secondary schooling.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"343-347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/MICROBE.11.343.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63641426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microbiological Anomalies?: Some of our approaches to infectious disease might seem perplexing to a visitor from outer space","authors":"B. Dixon","doi":"10.1128/microbe.11.332.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1128/microbe.11.332.1","url":null,"abstract":"If a Martin or Venusian were to visit Earth, then he, she, or it might be puzzled by several aspects of our relationship with microorganisms. Not being familiar with viruses, bacteria, or microfungi back home, but being ferociously intelligent, he, she, or it might, for example, wonder why, decades after the discovery that touch was at least as important as the aerial route in the dissemination of respiratory pathogens, health education remains almost entirely based on coughing and sneezing. The alien might also be perplexed that a global information network, the World Wide Web, purveys accurate, credible advice about infections such as candidiasis and Lyme disease alongside—and with the same prominence as—nonsense.","PeriodicalId":87479,"journal":{"name":"Microbe (Washington, D.C.)","volume":"11 1","pages":"332-333"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1128/microbe.11.332.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63640572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}