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- ReviewBacterial Vivisection: How Fluorescence-Based Imaging Techniques Shed a Light on the Inner Workings of Bacteria
The rise in fluorescence-based imaging techniques over the past 3 decades has improved the ability of researchers to scrutinize live cell biology at increased spatial and temporal resolution. In microbiology, these real-time vivisections structurally changed the view on the bacterial cell away from the “watery bag of enzymes” paradigm toward the perspective that these organisms are as complex as their eukaryotic counterparts....
- ReviewThe Role of Neutrophils in Brucellosis
Brucellosis is a bacterial disease of domestic animals and humans. The pathogenic ability of Brucella organisms relies on their stealthy strategy and their capacity to replicate within host cells and to induce long-lasting infections. Brucella organisms barely induce neutrophil activation and survive within these leukocytes by resisting microbicidal mechanisms. Very few Brucella-infected neutrophils are found...
- ReviewPlasma Membrane MCC/Eisosome Domains Promote Stress Resistance in Fungi
There is growing appreciation that the plasma membrane orchestrates a diverse array of functions by segregating different activities into specialized domains that vary in size, stability, and composition. Studies with the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have identified a novel type of plasma membrane domain known as the MCC (membrane compartment of Can1)/...
- ReviewIn Vitro Studies of Persister Cells
Many bacterial pathogens can permanently colonize their host and establish either chronic or recurrent infections that the immune system and antimicrobial therapies fail to eradicate. Antibiotic persisters (persister cells) are believed to be among the factors that make these infections challenging. Persisters are subpopulations of bacteria which survive treatment with bactericidal antibiotics in otherwise antibiotic-sensitive cultures...
- ReviewModeling Tubercular ESX-1 Secretion Using Mycobacterium marinum
Pathogenic mycobacteria cause chronic and acute diseases ranging from human tuberculosis (TB) to nontubercular infections. Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes both acute and chronic human tuberculosis. Environmentally acquired nontubercular mycobacteria (NTM) cause chronic disease in humans and animals. Not surprisingly, NTM and...
- ReviewGrowing Ungrowable Bacteria: Overview and Perspectives on Insect Symbiont Culturability
Insects are often involved in endosymbiosis, that is, the housing of symbiotic microbes within their tissues or within their cells. Endosymbionts are a major driving force in insects’ evolution, because they dramatically affect their host physiology and allow them to adapt to new niches, for example, by complementing their diet or by protecting them against pathogens. Endosymbiotic bacteria are, however, fastidious and therefore...
- ReviewThe Race between Host Antiviral Innate Immunity and the Immune Evasion Strategies of Herpes Simplex Virus 1
Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) is very successful in establishing acute and latent infections in humans by counteracting host antiviral innate immune responses. HSV-1 has evolved various strategies to evade host antiviral innate immunity and some cellular survival-associated pathways. Since there is still no vaccine available for HSV-1, a continuous update of information regarding the interaction between HSV-1 infection and the host...