Researchers at the University of Dundee have discovered an enzyme they believe could be key to preventing Group A Streptococcus infections that cause more than 500,000 deaths worldwide each year.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 18, 2019
0
326
Most people think of "strep throat" as a relatively benign infection cured by a round of antibiotics and a few days of rest. But the bacterium that causes strep throat—Group A Streptococcus—is also responsible for a number ...
Biochemistry
Apr 1, 2019
0
152
A new study identifies a single molecule as a key entry point used by two types of dangerous bacteria to break through cellular barriers and cause disease. The findings, published March 19 in the journal mBio, suggest that ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 19, 2019
0
55
To successfully infect their hosts, bacteria need to evade the host immune system in order to reproduce and spread. Over the course of evolution, hosts—such as humans—develop increasingly sophisticated defenses against ...
Evolution
Mar 11, 2019
0
22
Bacteria can become insensitive to antibiotics by picking up resistance genes from the environment. Unfortunately for patients, the stress response induced by antibiotics activates competence in microorganisms, the ability ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 28, 2018
1
74
The most prevalent chronic disease in both children and adults, tooth decay occurs when the good and bad bacteria in our mouth become imbalanced. The bad bacteria, Streptococcus mutans, forms a biofilm (aka tartar), then ...
Biotechnology
Jul 27, 2018
0
232
Researchers at Harvard Medical School, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Georgia have described how the protein that allows strep and staph bacteria to stick to human cells is prepared and ...
Biochemistry
Apr 6, 2018
0
129
A large-scale genetic and modelling study of Streptococcus pneumoniae has provided new insight into how recently-introduced vaccines have eliminated many strains from the species, and the diverse ways in which the remaining ...
Ecology
Oct 18, 2017
0
16
Researchers at Houston Methodist have solved a 100-year-old mystery, providing them a possible key to unlock a pathway for treating diseases caused by flesh-eating bacteria. This is timely news, given the current dangers ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 18, 2017
0
198
The synthetic biologists from Imperial College London have re-engineered yeast cells to manufacture the nonribosomal peptide antibiotic penicillin. In laboratory experiments, they were able to demonstrate that this yeast ...
Biotechnology
May 4, 2017
0
947
