Rhizobium adapts lifestyles from rhizosphere to symbiosis

Rhizobia are soil-dwelling bacteria that form symbioses with legumes and provide biologically useable nitrogen as ammonium for the host plant. During symbiosis, rhizobia must adapt to several different lifestyles. These range ...

Strategies to decrease bacterial colonization

Among the bacterial infections that are most difficult to treat, chronic infections associated with bacterial biofilms are one of the most hazardous. Bacterial biofilms are densely packed communities of microbial cells surrounded ...

How cranberries impact infection-causing bacteria

Consuming cranberry products has been anecdotally associated with prevention of urinary tract infections (UTIs) for over 100 years. But is this popular belief a myth, or scientific fact?

Intestinal bacteria protect against E. coli O157:H7

A cocktail of non-pathogenic bacteria naturally occurring in the digestive tract of healthy humans can protect against a potentially lethal E. coli infection in animal models according to research presented today at the 113th ...

Fighting bacteria with mucus

Slimy layers of bacterial growth, known as biofilms, pose a significant hazard in industrial and medical settings. Once established, biofilms are very difficult to remove, and a great deal of research has gone into figuring ...

Protecting embryos against microbes

Headed by the Kiel zoologist Professor Thomas Bosch, a team of scientists from Germany and Russia succeeded in deciphering the mechanisms, for the first time, with which embryos of the freshwater polyp Hydra protect themselves ...