Pathogen in Biological News

C. difficile spores spread superbug

... is a highly resistant and highly infectious pathogen and resistant to many front line antibiotics," ... . But, to understand how this highly infectious pathogen spreads, investigating the entire cycle of ... says Professor Gordon Dougan, Head of pathogen Genetics at the Sanger Institute and senior ...

Flexible neck in cell-receptor DC-SIGN targets more pathogens

... CHAMPAIGN, Ill. pathogen recognition is the foundation of the body's ... sites of DC-SIGN plays a significant role in pathogen targeting and binding. "Our work focuses on how ... membrane decorated with carbohydrates to mimic a pathogen surface. The forces were measured as a function ...

Spring fishing season arrives... and with it, amphibian diseases

... their pathogens," says Collins. Examples of pathogen pollution are many and dramatic. Europeans ... had animals with Bd. "If the presence of a pathogen in bait-trade salamanders is narrowed to several ... populations," he says. "Random monitoring of pathogen movement through the bait trade may help limit ...

New wheat disease could spread faster than expected

... the mid-1840s. And they suggest that a new fungal pathogen of wheat that emerged a few years ago in Uganda ... have a wheat industry," Mundt said. "From this pathogen we've learned a lot about plant disease ... even though only small amounts of an invading pathogen may show up at any one remote spot, it has the ...

Scientists unlock the secrets of C. difficile's protective shell

... superbug, and which helps the dangerous pathogen stick to human host cells and tissues, is ... infections, because without the S-layer, the pathogen cells cannot function, and die. The team behind ... . This is because the protein outer-shell of the pathogen is 'seen' and recognised as dangerous by the ...

Special issue of BMC Microbiology spotlights standardized language for describing microbes

... is shown by taking a close-up look at the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 and the animal pathogen Escherichia coli strains. Many plant pathogens ... mechanism that kills infected plant tissue so the pathogen can no longer feed on it. One of the articles in ...

Comparative genomics reveals molecular evolution of Q fever pathogen

... genetic clues about why some strains of the pathogen Coxiella burnetii are more virulent than ... protection against invading pathogens. The pathogen has the remarkable ability to replicate in a ... communities interested in the evolution of pathogen virulence." Dr. Heinzen concluded: "The ...

Farming and chemical warfare: A day in the life of an ant?

... have shown that a specialized microfungal pathogen attacks the gardens of the fungus-growing ants. ... antifungal compounds that stop the microfungal pathogen from attacking the garden. This discovery was the ... the tight association between ant, bacteria and pathogen will sometimes result in ...

Phase III data show efficacy/safety of iclaprim in patients with complicated skin infections

... ITT population who had an infecting Gram-positive pathogen isolated at baseline; The PP population ... as clinical failures. The causative pathogen distribution in the study population was ... aureus ( S. aureus ) as the predominant pathogen isolated at baseline (76.5 percent for iclaprim ...

Rapid test for pathogens developed by K-State researchers

... out the specific genetic markers that set one pathogen apart from another and determine antibiotic ... for the specific genetic sequences that set each pathogen apart. So far they can detect as many as 557 ... be to develop a test that indicates how much of a pathogen is present, or rather how bad an infection is. ...

Tree-killing fungus officially named by scientists

... as well as a detailed explanation of how the pathogen compares to similar fungi." Raffaelea ... beetle. R. lauricola is the only known tree pathogen among the ambrosia fungi and differs from other ... serves as a food source for beetle larvae. The pathogen moves through a tree's vessels causing a vascular ...

Pathogen virulence proteins suppress plant immunity

... the production of infectious disease by the plant pathogen Phytophthora sojae. VBI Professor Brett Tyler ... plant tissue and fills it with toxins so the pathogen can no longer feed on it. The work appears in the ... Plant Cell. (1) P. sojae is an oomycete plant pathogen that causes severe damage to soybean crops, ...

Sudden Oak Death pathogen is evolving, says new study that reconstructs the epidemic

... Berkeley - The pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death first got its ... journal Molecular Ecology, also shows that the pathogen is currently evolving in California, with mutant ... two locations from which the Sudden Oak Death pathogen spread to other parts of California, the close ...

Researcher discovers pathway plants use to fight back against pathogens

... it has not been known what happens between the pathogen attacks and the defense activation, until now. A ... genome sequenced, and Botrytis cinera, a fungal pathogen that causes grey mold disease in a number of ... under adverse environmental conditions, such as pathogen attacks, we could eventually improve the disease ...

Defining gene's role may lead to prevention of dangerous corn toxin

... in the kernels may lead to ways to control the pathogen and the poison. Purdue University researchers ... as fuel for other biochemical processes. "The pathogen - the fungus Fusarium verticillioides - has a ... evidence that the kernel makeup dictates how this pathogen controls toxin production. Corn and fungal ...

Ebola virus disarmed by excising a single gene

... provide a way to greatly expand studies of the pathogen and speed the development of countermeasures. ... the VP30 protein, the virus is identical to the pathogen found in the wild, making it ideal for studies of ... 4 laboratory. Any proposal to permit studying the pathogen in lower safety level labs is certain to generate ...

Fungus genome yielding answers to protect grains, people and animals

... WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Why a pathogen is a pathogen may be answered as scientists study the recently ... help them discover what makes this particular pathogen so harmful, what triggers the process that ...

New nanoparticle vaccine is more effective but less expensive

... is an injection of a non-virulent form of a pathogen or molecule from a pathogen (known as an antigen), to which the immune system ... the pathogen. Later, when a virulent form of the pathogen comes along, this memory kicks in and the ...

Humans fostering forest-destroying disease

... keystone species. Since the same plant pathogen has also been found in forests of Europe, it is ... (but not yet proven) that the sudden oak death pathogen was introduced by humans, probably from Asia. ... colleagues in the Journal of Ecology showed that pathogen inoculum load (the actual amount of ...

Plant microbe shares features with drug-resistant pathogen

... decoded to see why these strains - one isolated as an opportunistic pathogen from a clinical setting (strain K279a), and the other from the roots of ... "Surprisingly, we observed very few differences between the opportunistic pathogen and the common plant bacterium," said Brookhaven Lab microbiologist Daniel ...

Yale researchers uncover secrets of salmonella's stealth attack

... bacterial proteins that mimic proteins of the host cell and help the pathogen avoid destruction. The Yale study describes the crucial role a ... provide a unique insight into the mechanisms by which this important pathogen causes disease," Galan said. "In addition, this finding may point to a ...

Research could lead to new non-antibiotic drugs to counter hospital infections

... lead to new drugs that would disarm the increasingly antibiotic-resistant pathogen rather than attempting to kill it. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of ... which P. aeruginosa is able to shift from indolent colonizer to a lethal pathogen when present in the intestinal tract of a stressed host," said Alexander ...

Ecologists question effects of climate change on infectious diseases

... that economic forces might be just as important as climate in determining pathogen ranges," Lafferty says. Mercedes Pascual of the University of Michigan ... If climate change makes these areas more fit for mosquito breeding and for pathogen development, she writes, then a number of infections could expand. She ...

Exploring the dynamic relationship between health and environment

... And new advances in genomics are helping scientists map the evolution of a pathogen and understand its ecology. These and other stories will be part of ... takes center stage in a discussion that includes experts in epidemiology, pathogen surveillance and monitoring, and phylogenetics. Confirmed speakers and ...

Portable kit may 1 day detect plant disease before disastrous outbreak

... select list. PADLOC is what they have already named the futuristic kit pathogen Detection Lab-On-a-Chip. "It's a portable system," Shim said. "The idea ... a process that can take years, Shim said. If a new or foreign plant pathogen is introduced to an area, susceptible plants are not able to defend ...

Tiny details in three dimensions

... flagella. A correlation between the motility and infectiousness of the pathogen has long been presumed. The Heidelberg researchers have now for the ... cryo-tomographic microscopy, they have successfully shown that the three pathogen types have varying numbers of flagella. In addition, structures were ...

Ocean fish farming harms wild fish, study says

... from predators by their cage, so infected farm fish live on, shedding pathogen into the water. The higher levels of pathogen in the water cause the death rates of wild fish to rise. The above ...

Red alert! How disease disables tomato plant's 'intruder alarm'

... today (4 December) in Current Biology . The new study focuses on a pathogen which causes bacterial speck disease in tomato plants. This bacterial ... without the need for pesticides. Scientists have found that the pathogen is very effective at attacking tomato plants because it deactivates and ...

A novel target for therapeutics against Staph infection

... Technology, and the University of Edinburgh have uncovered how a bacterial pathogen interacts with the blood coagulation protein fibrinogen to cause ... but now affecting segments of the general population, MRSA is a bacterial pathogen responsible for a range of diseases from mild skin infection to ...

ASU researchers receive NIH awards for studies of malaria and emergent disease

... in parasites and pathogens and how the demographic history of parasite and pathogen affects its adaptive variation." Host shifts are the focus of the ... workers in Western countries. In contrast, little is known about the pathogen exchange between primates in close contact with humans in Asia. ...

UCR graduate student discovers, names bacterium linked to psyllid yellows

... a doctoral student in entomology, has discovered and named a new bacterial pathogen that could be responsible for "psyllid yellows," a disease that infects ... with another organism of a different species.) She named the pathogen "Candidatus Liberibacter psyllaurous." Liberibacter, she explained, is ...

Potential new drug target to fight tuberculosis identified

... targets for anti-infective agents," continues Dr. Nathan, "those that the pathogen only needs in order to survive in the host environment." The research ... from standard anti-infective research, which typically deals with the pathogen simply replicating in culture," explains Dr. Vandal. "In our experiments, ...

Defining DNA differences to track and tackle typhoid

... bacterium: it is the first study of multiple samples of any bacterial pathogen at this level of detail. It uncovers previously hidden genetic signatures ... show amazingly little variation," says Professor Julian Parkhill, Head of pathogen Genomics. "We have been able to use novel technologies, developed for the ...

Tomato pathogen genome may offer clues about bacterial evolution

... award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate the pathogen that causes bacterial speck disease of tomatoes and to develop a new ... Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Sciences. The tomato pathogen was the first genome to be sequenced on the new Roche GS-FLX machine, ...

Tomato pathogen genome may offer clues about bacterial evolution at dawn of agriculture

... award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate the pathogen that causes bacterial speck disease of tomatoes and to develop a new ... Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Sciences. The tomato pathogen was the first genome to be sequenced on the new Roche GS-FLX machine, ...

New drug targets may fight tuberculosis and other bacterial infections in novel way

... directly, to anti-infectives, that may have no effect against the pathogen in the test tube but which do compromise its ability to infect and spread ... it was technically not possible to test the inhibitor in M. leprae, that pathogen is very closely related to M. tuberculosis, so the researchers believe ...

Can interacting pathogens explain disease patterns?

... interact with one another or whether interactions matter in natural pathogen systems. The debate continues because these interactions are so hard to ... consequences and understanding this can help us better understand pathogen patterns. For example it could help scientists to predict more clearly ...

K-State specialist in tick-borne pathogens receives $1.8 million grant

... with ehrlichiosis require hospitalization. This particular tick-borne pathogen is also unique because it circumvents the initial defenses of the immune ... pathogens," Ganta said. "Our research is focused on understanding the pathogen evasion mechanisms, and then using those to defeat it." The trick now ...

Research sheds new light on how diseases jump across species

... to a more effective monitoring and control of the virus. Whilst these pathogen jumps across species are quite common, very little is known about the ... out at us. They were so clear-cut, we think its highly likely that pathogen evolution is a much more general mechanism in cross-species transmission ...

Dangerous liaisons

... site. But in the wimpy hybrids, healthy tissue also suffered - without pathogen infection. The hybrid plants apparently mistook their own cells for ... The plant genome changes under pressure from pathogens. "Plant and pathogen are locked in a race," says Dangl, professor and expert in the genetics of ...