BacterioFiles 260 - Endoriftia Evacuate Expired Employers

This episode: Bacteria in hydrothermal vents that feed their host tubeworms evacuate when their hosts perish!
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Show notes:
Journal Paper:
Klose J, Polz MF, Wagner M, Schimak MP, Gollner S, Bright M. 2015. Endosymbionts escape dead hydrothermal vent tubeworms to enrich the free-living population. Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:11300–11305.

Other interesting stories:

Making bacteria sensors from phages oriented along electric fields

Insecticide-producing bacteria could treat parasite infections

Probiotics can help by improving overall gut community (paper)

Plant virus could induce immune response against cancer

Exercise early in life could develop better microbiome

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BacterioFiles 259 - Fluke Froth Fosters Fester Fixing

This episode: I converse with Dr. Michael Smout about a liver fluke parasite could help heal chronic wounds faster!
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Show notes:
News item

Journal Paper:
Smout MJ, Sotillo J, Laha T, Papatpremsiri A, Rinaldi G, Pimenta RN, Chan LY, Johnson MS, Turnbull L, Whitchurch CB, Giacomin PR, Moran CS, Golledge J, Daly N, Sripa B, Mulvenna JP, Brindley PJ, Loukas A. 2015. Carcinogenic Parasite Secretes Growth Factor That Accelerates Wound Healing and Potentially Promotes Neoplasia. PLOS Pathog 11:e1005209.

Michael Smout's research portfolio
Winning presentation about this research on FameLab
The Australian Institute of Tropical Health & Medicine

Other interesting stories:

Good bacteria help protect fish from pathogens (paper)

New microbes from glacial ice could be useful (paper)

Making hybrid yeast could create potentially useful strains

Cooperating bacteria exclude non-cooperators from their colonies

Engineered bacteria can have built-in kill switches to control them in environment (paper)

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

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BacterioFiles 258 - Transformed Toxin Translocates Treatments

This episode: Bacterial toxins could be modified to deliver life-saving proteins into neurons!
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Show notes:
Journal Paper:
Chen C, Przedpelski A, Tepp WH, Pellett S, Johnson EA, Barbieri JT. 2015. Heat-Labile Enterotoxin IIa, a Platform To Deliver Heterologous Proteins into Neurons. mBio 6:e00734-15.

Other interesting stories:

Treating infant formula with bacteriophages could prevent deadly infection

Fungus makes silver nanoparticles that fight other, pathogenic fungus (paper)

Fungal symbionts affects how plants interact with soil microbes (paper)

Bacteria can help control plant-damaging worms (paper)

Microbes help fight toxin-producing fungi on coffee (paper)

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

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BacterioFiles 257 - Phage Fibers Fight Phyllosphere Foes

Bacteria-killing tail fibers
Hockett et al. 2015

This episode: Bacteria have repeatedly captured and used the tails of phages to fight each other!
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Show notes:
Journal Paper:
Hockett KL, Renner T, Baltrus DA. 2015. Independent Co-Option of a Tailed Bacteriophage into a Killing Complex in Pseudomonas. mBio 6:e00452-15.

Other interesting stories:

Bacterial immune system can make plants resistant to viruses

Viruses are (usually) tiny but interesting

Gut microbes may have surprising effects on our behavior

Engineering viruses to use quantum effects for better solar cells

Probiotic bacteria could help with Type 2 diabetes (paper)

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

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BacterioFiles 256 - Virus Versus Virus

This episode: Viruses can cause host cells to inhibit other viruses!
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Show notes:
Journal Paper:
Chiba S, Suzuki N. 2015. Highly activated RNA silencing via strong induction of dicer by one virus can interfere with the replication of an unrelated virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:E4911–E4918.

Other interesting stories:

Rotating crops helps maintain healthy soil microbe communities

Phages can control contamination in biofuel fermentation (paper)

Bacteria actually living in wheat plants affect sourdough bread (paper)

Fecal transplants of communities can overcome most drug-resistant infections

Finding bacteria that can help plants grow (paper)

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

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BacterioFiles 255 - Colonizer Controls Carrier Cultivation

Amoeba spores with bacteria inside
DiSalvo et al. 2015

This episode: Some bacteria seem to cause slime mold amoebas to carry around other bacteria for food!
Download Episode (12.4 MB, 13.5 minutes)

Show notes:
News item

Journal Paper:
DiSalvo S, Haselkorn TS, Bashir U, Jimenez D, Brock DA, Queller DC, Strassmann JE. 2015. Burkholderia bacteria infectiously induce the proto-farming symbiosis of Dictyostelium amoebae and food bacteria. Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:E5029–E5037.

Other interesting stories:

Fish oil vs. lard affect gut microbes differently

Engineered mix of engineered bacteria produce controlled oscillations

Mutation and selection makes better biomass-degrading enzymes

Antibodies can be produced inside bacteria (paper)

Fungus can be used to kill mosquitoes (paper)

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

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BacterioFiles 254 - Clostridium Consolidates Combustibles Conversion

This episode: Engineering bacteria to convert cellulose directly into useful biofuels and chemicals can be tricky!
Download Episode (13.9 MB, 15.2 minutes)

Show notes:
News item

Journal Paper:
Lin PP, Mi L, Morioka AH, Yoshino KM, Konishi S, Xu SC, Papanek BA, Riley LA, Guss AM, Liao JC. 2015. Consolidated bioprocessing of cellulose to isobutanol using Clostridium thermocellum. Metab Eng 31:44–52.

Other interesting stories:

Cute photosynthetic protist could do interesting metabolic processes

Using advanced technique to link antibiotic production to specific beewolf microbes

Termite gut protist has bacterial symbiont that fixes carbon and nitrogen (paper)

Geography and household members influence fungi and bacteria of home dust

Probiotic ineffective at preventing colonization by drug-resistant pathogens

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

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