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ASM Articles in Spotlight Print E-mail

ASM Articles in the Spotlight. The ASM journals Eukaryotic Cell, Infection and Immunity, and the Journal of Virology highlight current articles of interest in their Spotlight sections:
http://ec.asm.org/current.dtl#SPOTLIGHT
http://iai.asm.org/current.dtl#SPOTLIGHT
http://jvi.asm.org/current.dtl#SPOTLIGHT

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Mutation in H1N1 Pandemic Virus Changes Receptor Specificity and Cell Tropism-also Associated with 1918 Pandemic Print E-mail

Although the majority of disease has been mild, the 2009 pandemic influenza virus (H1N1pdm) has caused significant numbers of severe and fatal infections. Variants with glycine instead of aspartic acid in residue 222 in the receptor binding site for virus hemagglutinin were associated with fatal and severe cases, but not with mild cases-an especially intriguing finding since that mutation was also associated with fatalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

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Pheromone Kills C. albicans: Hope for New Classes of Antifungals? Print E-mail

Candida albicans's virulence is legendary. Now Richard J. Bennett and colleagues of Brown University, Providence, R.I., show that exposure to high doses of the pathogen's own mating pheromone induced cell death.  

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New Weapon Promising against Deadly P. aeruginosa Strain Print E-mail

Recent epidemiologic data shows that Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a leading cause of ventilator-associated pneumonia, with prevalence in ICUs ranging from 5 to 67%, and mortality rates ranging from 24 to 76%, according to population studies.  

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Predicting Plasmid Promiscuity Could Help Fight Resistance Print E-mail

 

Bacterial plasmids spread antibiotic resistance, virulence, and many other traits. Eva Top and colleagues of the University of Idaho, Moscow, show that the range of bacteria in which plasmids have resided over evolutionary time can be inferred based entirely on information from plasmid DNA.
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How Phage Progeny Bust Loose: Another Piece of the Puzzle Print E-mail

At the end of the bacteriophage life cycle, a phage must lyse the host to release its progeny. It does this by releasing a phage-encoded endolysin, which degrades the host's cell wall.

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