Population mutation rates are highly flexible and evolvable under extreme stress conditions, matching changes in selective pressure to avoid extinction of the entire population.
The attempt to manipulate a microbiome in planta to study the ecological consequences under field conditions leaves plants and their microbes surprisingly unimpressed.
The helical rod structure and dynamic spring-like properties of the type 1 pilus are evolutionarily fine-tuned for functioning in host-pathogen interactions during urinary tract infection and gut colonization.
Interbacterial interactions can promote mutagenesis, and possibly adaptation, when intoxicated cells survive exposure to type VI secretion-delivered DNA deaminase toxins.
A genome scale model of Brugia malayi metabolism illustrates a dynamic reliance on energy production pathways across its life cycle and identifies new drugs with experimentally supported anti-parasitic properties.
The helical bacterium Helicobacter pylori patterns cell wall synthesis using two distinct cytoskeletal proteins, CcmA and MreB, to achieve its characteristic shape.
The absence of oxygen prompts Staphylococcus aureus cells to rupture resulting in increased formation of biofilms, which are the etiological agents of recurrent infections.
A network of the gut chemical landscape predicts microbe-mediated biotransformation of foods and drugs and supports the generation of mechanistic hypotheses of microbiome metabolic phenotypes that shape human biology.
Sox2 transcription is not correlated with spatial proximity of its essential regulatory enhancer in embryonic stem cells, suggesting gene transcription is not limited to periods of direct enhancer-promoter contact.
Beneficial symbiotic bacteria encode an exceptional number of toxin-related genes that are all expressed by the symbionts in the host, supporting their key role in host-microbe interactions.
