Scienceblogtwo

Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their associates have answered a long-standing question concerning how E. coli and other bacteria may migrate. By coiling their lengthy, threadlike appendages into corkscrew shapes that serve as improvised propellers, bacteria propulsion themselves ahead. However, because the "propellers" are formed of a single protein, experts are confused as to how exactly they accomplish this. The case has been solved by an international team led by UVA's Edward H. Egelman, PhD, a pioneer in the high-tech discipline of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The unique atomic-level structure of these propellers, which was invisible to a typical light microscope, was revealed by the researchers using cryo-EM and sophisticated computer modeling. "We have finally determined the structure of these filaments in atomic detail," said Egelman, of UVA's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. "Models ha...

The soil and oceans contain a network of microscopic nanowires produced by bacteria that "breathe" by releasing extra electrons, creating an inbuilt electrical grid for the environment. Scientists from Yale University have discovered that light is an unexpected ally in promoting this electronic activity in biofilm bacteria. They found that exposing bacteria-produced nanowires to light increased their electrical conductivity by up to 100 times. The senior author, associate professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (MBB) at Yale's Microbial Sciences Institute on Yale's West Campus, Nikhil Malvankar, noted that the photocurrent demonstrated by the dramatic current increases in nanowires exposed to light is stable and robust and lasts for hours. The findings may offer fresh perspectives as researchers look for new ways to utilize this submerged electrical current. It might be utilized, for instance, to aid in the removal of biohazard waste or produce fresh renewa...

Factories can retool to support the demands of conflict during times of war. Assembly lines switch from producing washing machines to aircraft engines, or from creating vehicle parts to machine guns. According to Xinnian Dong, a professor at Duke University, plants can also change their production from peacetime to wartime. Microbes, such as bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, frequently damage crops and other plants. A plant modifies the chemical stew of proteins, the life's mainstay components, inside its cells when it detects a microbial incursion. Dong and her research team have been piecing together how they accomplish it over the past few years. Dong and lead author Jinlong Wang describe the essential elements in plant cells that reconfigure their protein-making machinery to fight disease in a new study that was just published in the journal Cell. Bacterial and fungal diseases reduce crop productivity by about 15% annually, costing the world economy over $220 billion. For...

The disorder known as colorectal cancer, or rectum cancer, is characterized by an uncontrolled cell proliferation in the rectum or colon. According to a recent study, Clostridioides difficile may be the cause of some colorectal malignancies. The bacterium species Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, which is well known for causing catastrophic diarrheal infections, may also cause colorectal cancer, according to data gathered by researchers at the Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. This bacteria causes approximately 500,000 infections annually in the United States, many of which are very difficult to treat, and the study, which was just published in the journal Cancer Discovery, may give light on another troubling job for it. "It's surprising how many people under 50 have received colon cancer diagnoses in recent years. According to Cynthia Sears, M.D., the Bloomberg-Kimmel Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy and a pro...

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers recently reported that they had developed a biofilm that could absorb evaporation energy and transform it into electricity. The wearable electronics industry may soon undergo a transformation thanks to this biofilm, which was just described in Nature Communications and could power everything from personal medical sensors to personal electronics. According to Xiaomeng Liu, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering at the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the paper's primary author, "This is a very intriguing technology." "It is truly green energy, and unlike other purportedly "green energy" sources, the entire process of producing it is green." This is due to the fact that a genetically modified strain of the bacteria Geobacter sulfurreducens naturally produces this biofilm, a thin sheet of bacterial cells roughly the thickness of a sheet of paper. Electr...

Numerous bacteria that reside in our stomach aid in food digestion. But what precisely do the microbes in the body perform? When do they create certain enzymes? And how do the bacteria break down meals that promote health and keep us healthy? Researchers at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel modified bacteria such that they serve as data recorders for information on gene activity in order to address these concerns. They have now examined these bacteria in mice in collaboration with researchers from the University Hospital of Bern and the University of Bern. This is a crucial step toward employing sensor bacteria in medicine for future uses like identifying an individual's ideal diet and detecting malnutrition. Researchers working under the direction of Randall Platt, professor of biological engineering at ETH Zurich, created the data logger function during the previous few years. They used the CRISPR-Cas mechanism, a form of immune system fo...