More articles from Minireview
- Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyLatent Toxoplasmosis Effects on Rodents and Humans: How Much is Real and How Much is Media Hype?
Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous, intracellular protozoan parasite with a broad range of intermediate hosts, including humans and rodents. In many hosts, T. gondii establishes a latent long-term infection by converting from its rapidly dividing or lytic form to its slowly replicating and encysting...
- Minireview | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceMore than Simple Parasites: the Sociobiology of Bacteriophages and Their Bacterial Hosts
Bacteria harbor viruses called bacteriophages that, like all viruses, co-opt the host cellular machinery to replicate. Although this relationship is at first glance parasitic, there are social interactions among and between bacteriophages and their bacterial hosts. These social interactions can take on many forms, including cooperation, altruism, and cheating. Such behaviors among individuals in groups of bacteria have been well...
- Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyScratching the Surface: Bacterial Cell Envelopes at the Nanoscale
The bacterial cell envelope is essential for viability, the environmental gatekeeper and first line of defense against external stresses. For most bacteria, the envelope biosynthesis is also the site of action of some of the most important groups of antibiotics. It is a complex, often multicomponent structure, able to withstand the internally generated turgor pressure. Thus, elucidating the architecture and dynamics of the cell envelope...
- Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyVomocytosis: Too Much Booze, Base, or Calcium?
Macrophages are well known for their phagocytic activity and their role in innate immune responses. Macrophages eat non-self particles, via a variety of mechanisms, and typically break down internalized cargo into small macromolecules. However, some pathogenic agents have the ability to evade this endosomal degradation through a nonlytic exocytosis process termed vomocytosis.
- Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyMolecular Imaging: a Novel Tool To Visualize Pathogenesis of Infections In Situ
Molecular imaging is an emerging technology that enables the noninvasive visualization, characterization, and quantification of molecular events within living subjects. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a clinically available molecular imaging tool with significant potential to study pathogenesis of infections in humans.
- Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyBenefits and Costs of Animal Virulence for Microbes
This essay is written from the vantage point of the microbial world. While the focus of much thought in the microbial pathogenesis and infectious diseases fields has been on the impact of host-microbe interaction on the host, here we ask questions about what happens to the microbe.
- Minireview | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyMechanisms, Detection, and Relevance of Protein Acetylation in Prokaryotes
Posttranslational modification of a protein, either alone or in combination with other modifications, can control properties of that protein, such as enzymatic activity, localization, stability, or interactions with other molecules. N-ε-Lysine acetylation is one such modification that has gained attention in recent years, with a prevalence and significance that rival those of phosphorylation.
- Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyGammaherpesvirus RNAs Come Full Circle
After an adaptive immune response is mounted, gammaherpesviruses achieve persistence through the utilization of viral noncoding RNAs to craft a suitable host cell environment in an immunologically transparent manner. While gammaherpesvirus long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs have been recognized for some time and have been actively investigated, a recent spate of reports have now identified repertoires of the circular RNA (...
- Minireview | Host-Microbe BiologyBiphasic Dynamics of Macrophage Immunometabolism during Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection
Macrophages are the primary targets of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection; the early events of macrophage interaction with M. tuberculosis define subsequent progression and outcome of infection. M. tuberculosis can alter the...
- Minireview | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceFungi in the Marine Environment: Open Questions and Unsolved Problems
Terrestrial fungi play critical roles in nutrient cycling and food webs and can shape macroorganism communities as parasites and mutualists. Although estimates for the number of fungal species on the planet range from 1.5 to over 5 million, likely fewer than 10% of fungi have been identified so far.