Tag Archives: pathogen
BioID screen for bacterial virulence proteins: new tools for infectious disease research
The discovery of penicillin in the 1920s revolutionized our ability to treat bacterial infection. However despite the introduction of antibiotics, infectious bacterial pathogens remain an immense challenge for the healthcare community. The incidence of infection by antibiotic-resistant
New antimicrobial strategies against multidrug-resistant pathogens
Due to current antibiotic resistance worldwide, there is an urgent need to find new alternative antibacterial approaches capable of dealing with multidrug-resistant pathogens. In fact, the World Health Organization has recently announced the increasing high levels of
Counting choline: why this nutrient is important and how we can measure it
Choline is an important nutrient for the growth and sustenance of living things, from humans to bacteria. Cells covert choline into phosphocholine via the activity of the enzyme choline kinase, and a change of other enzyme mediated
Generating hit molecules against pathogenic DNA motifs in silico
Genome (all the information that is encoded in DNA or RNA and is capable of being passed on to an offspring) is the blueprint of an organism. It consists of a sequence of letters A, G, C,
Bacteria with a split personality outsmart the immune system
Bacteria, whether beneficial or harmful, must adapt to changes in their environment in order to survive. This is especially true for bacteria that reside within the human respiratory tract. The bacterium nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae, or NTHI, asymptomatically
20th-century version of an old pathogen. Drug resistant tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis the causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB) is consider the most successful pathogen that could infect (2 billion), induce (10.4 million) and kill (1.7 million) a large number of people around the world. Besides this
Multi-tasking proteins protect sea urchins from multitudes of pathogens
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a deadly problem for human health, yet these pathogens arise and persist due to the misuse and over-prescription of the same classes of antibiotics. Wouldn’t it be better if there was a
Genetic information of mosquito blood cells decoded
Mosquitoes are most dangerous tiny animal killing 7.25 million peoples in the world annually, as they transmit many deadliest pathogens causing malaria, dengue, chikungunya, zika virus infection etc. Despite of the strong innate and adaptive immune system
Tuberculosis in ancient bones can also be identified by a protein of the pathogen
As we all know, DNA is the matrix for the proteins and the proteins are the molecules which are involved in every step of the metabolism of all living organisms inside and outside of cells. Without proteins
Tracing aluminium adjuvants in viable cells
To improve the effect of a vaccine, adjuvants are often included in the vaccine formulation. An adjuvant is a molecule that potentiates the immune response induced by the vaccine, and commonly used adjuvants in vaccine formulations are
Hosts and pathogens: war without end
Theodosius Dobzhansky once famously remarked that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Nowhere is this truer than in the never ending struggle between animals and the pathogens (viruses, bacteria and parasites) which
S5nA – a novel group a streptococcal immune evasion factor
Streptococcus pyogenes (aka Group A Streptococcus, GAS) is a pathogenic bacterium that causes disease in humans, ranging from pharyngitis (‘strep throat’) and skin infections to severe invasive diseases, such as necrotizing fasciitis (‘flesh-eating disease) and life-threatening toxic
Rust proofing the humble oat: wild cousins to the rescue
Crown rust is a disease caused by the fungus Puccinia coronata (Pc) that leads to a reduction in grain-yield of the oat crop and other cereals. Rust diseases of oat and cereals like wheat and barley result
Salmonella savors flavors
Salmonella is a common bacterial pathogen that causes a type of food-poisoning in humans (salmonellosis) which is characterized by diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and abdominal cramps. In general, the illness is self-limiting and most people recover without treatment.
Evolution of innate T cells
As a part of adaptive immunity, T cells identify and respond to products or antigens derived from pathogens. These antigens are seen by T cells in the form of short fragments or peptides presented by classical major
Differentiation of pathogenic races of the lentil anthracnose pathogen C.lentis using effectors
The genus Colletotrichum has been under revision for the last decade. It contains species of high economic importance as pathogens of major crops, but also includes species that are model organisms to study host-pathogen interactions. The hemibiotroph
Improving the mathematical estimation of the epidemic threshold on networks
Infectious diseases spreading via person-to-person contacts, such as plague, flu, and Ebora, have threatened humanity since the beginning of the recorded history. Societies have long been using the power of sciences to understand and mitigate the impacts
Detecting anthrax in the palm of your hand: applications of a smartphone microscope
Bacillus anthracis is a bacterial pathogen that causes the disease anthrax. In 2001, B. anthracis was used in a bioterrorism attack in the United States that resulted in 22 individuals becoming infected, 5 of whom died as
The growing number of resistance traits may limit the number of efficient antibiotics
Antibiotics are one of the major medical innovations of the 20th century. However, due to the escalation of multi- and even pandrug resistance in human clinical isolates, mainly in bacteria such as community-acquired Enterobacteriaceae and nosocomial Gram-negative
