BacterioFiles 329 - Special Secreting Structure Studied

Type 6 Secretion System protein
By User:Astrojan, CC-BY 4.0

This episode: New type of secretion system discovered that bacteria use to stab amoeba predators to escape their digestion!

Download Episode (7.8 MB, 8.5 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Avastrovirus 1

News item

Journal Paper:
Böck D, Medeiros JM, Tsao H-F, Penz T, Weiss GL, Aistleitner K, Horn M, Pilhofer M. 2017. In situ architecture, function, and evolution of a contractile injection system. Science 357:713–717.

Other interesting stories:

Gut microbe metabolites keep yeasts from taking over (paper)

Ancient fungi extracted minerals that helped ancient plants create oxygen

How microbes survive on and affect tombstones (paper)

Stomach bacterium produces interesting anti-inflammatory compound (paper)

Finding archaea in the human lung, gut, skin, and nose (paper)

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Episode outline:

No episode this week

No episode this week. I am working on getting some papers published! Stay tuned.

BacterioFiles 328 - Focused Phages Fight Films

Bacteriophages
By Sherwood Casjens,Elaine Lenk
CC BY-SA 3.0

This episode: Phages bound to magnetic nanoparticles can be guided and pulled toward their target, penetrating biofilms to kill harmful microbes!

Download Episode (9.6 MB, 10.4 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Veillonella alcalescens

News item

Journal Paper:
Li L-L, Yu P, Wang X, Yu S-S, Mathieu J, Yu H-Q, Alvarez PJJ. 2017. Enhanced biofilm penetration for microbial control by polyvalent phages conjugated with magnetic colloidal nanoparticle clusters (CNCs). Environ Sci Nano 4:1817–1826.

Other interesting stories:

Social group membership affects lemur gut microbes

Viruses can transfer genes between kingdoms

Trace gases in atmosphere enough to support microbes in Antarctica

Magnetic bacteria can swim even against the current

Engineered bacteria produce internal scaffolds for better biotech productions

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Episode outline:

BacterioFiles 327 - Microbe Metabolite Meliorates Malaise

Influenza virus particles

This episode: Gut microbes in mice break down plant foods and produce molecules that stimulate the immune system to resist influenza!

Thanks to Drs. Ashley Steed and Thaddeus Stappenbeck for their contributions!
Download Episode (9 MB, 9.8 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Bougainvillea chlorotic vein banding virus

News item

Journal Paper:
Steed AL, Christophi GP, Kaiko GE, Sun L, Goodwin VM, Jain U, Esaulova E, Artyomov MN, Morales DJ, Holtzman MJ, Boon ACM, Lenschow DJ, Stappenbeck TS. 2017. The microbial metabolite desaminotyrosine protects from influenza through type I interferon. Science 357:498–502.

Other interesting stories:

Nanobots with propellers modeled after bacterial flagella

Embedding useful bacteria into "ink" used to print 3D structures

Controlling behavior of individual bacteria using a computer

Exercise alone can affect microbiota

Microbes in ISS are similar to microbes in Earth homes

Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Episode outline: