Triple threat: One bacterium, three plasmids

Researchers from Australia found something completely new while conducting a genetic study of the pathogenesis of an enteric disease in birds. They report what is believed to be the first bacterial strain to carry three closely ...

Scarlet fever pathogen draft genome sequence released

Scarlet fever has revealed unusual high infect rate in Hong Kong this year. So far, 466 children were infected and 2 of them dead. Scarlet fever is caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, a gram-positive pathogen that can be transmitted ...

New Method Tests Severity of Key Citrus Virus

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new rapid way to test severity of the devastating citrus tristeza virus (CTV) in citrus trees has been developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Parlier, Calif. The results of this ...

One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World

(PhysOrg.com) -- A single bacterium can act alone, performing the same kinds of actions that a group normally does. The behavior of that bacterium can be manipulated at the cellular level. That’s the intriguing finding ...

Unusual bacteria help balance the immune system in mice

Medical researchers have long suspected that obscure bacteria living within the intestinal tract may help keep the human immune system in balance. An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical ...

C. difficile hypervirulence genes identified

Five genetic regions have been identified that are unique to the most virulent strain of Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), the hospital superbug. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology ...

New study overturns orthodoxy on how macrophages kill bacteria

For decades, microbiologists assumed that macrophages, immune cells that can engulf and poison bacteria and other pathogens, killed microbes by damaging their DNA. A new study from the University of Illinois disproves that.

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