Podcasts about caulobacter

Tim Stucky takes us away from the human microbiome out into nature, specifically clean freshwater habitats with very few nutrients. He discusses the genome of Caulobacter crescentus, a stalked bacterium that can either swim or attached itself to a substrate.

This episode: Giant viruses produce DNA-packing proteins that seem to have branched off from eukaryotes far back in evolutionary history! Download Episode (6 MB, 6.5 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Caulobacter maris News item Journal Paper: Erives AJ. 2017. Phylogenetic analysis of the core histone doublet and DNA topo II genes of Marseilleviridae: evidence of proto-eukaryotic provenance. Epigenetics & Chromatin 10:55. Other interesting stories: Swimming bacteria can affect liquid viscosity, to the point of superfluidity Tiny soil roundworms can sense and avoid pathogens by their gases Beetle bacterium makes defensive compound with genes taken from an ocean microbe   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

This episode: Some bacterial species use multiple strategies within a single population to deal with environmental challenges! Download Episode (8.9 MB, 9.7 minutes) Show notes: Journal Paper: Lawarée E, Gillet S, Louis G, Tilquin F, Blastier SL, Cambier P, Matroule J-Y. 2016. Caulobacter crescentus intrinsic dimorphism provides a prompt bimodal response to copper stress. Nat Microbiol 1:16098. Other interesting stories: Bacteria help starved, developing rats get more nutrition from the same food (paper) Creating gut microbe communities to resist pathogens (paper) Predatory bacteria can treat infections in zebrafish larvae Nitrogen is an important element for feeding the gut community Bacterial enzymes artificially evolved to make carbon-silicon compounds   Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook  

This episode: Bacterial antivirus system could treat chronic herpes virus infections! Download Episode (10.9 MB, 11.9 minutes)Show notes:Journal Paper Other interesting stories: Studying bacteria that consume and produce electricity Fungus living in rice seems like it evolved from rice pathogen (paper) Bacteria growing with plants could help clean air in buildings (paper) Understanding how Caulobacter tolerates high levels of uranium (paper) Report about how viruses are more than pathogens Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

I went to the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, in Denver, Colorado, and I wanted to share some of the fascinating science that I experienced. So here's my summary of the first day! Download Episode (6.45 MB, 7 minutes) Section 1: I missed it because Denver is confusing and it took me so long to find parking. Apparently it was interesting, though, discussing how a certain bacterium, Caulobacter crescentus, divides into two daughter cells, one that holds onto a surface and the other that swims away. Section 2: The Killers, the Cures, and the Limits of Life: Frontiers of Science in the Unseen World Presented by Nathan D. Wolfe I missed some of this section, but what I heard was interesting, about how endogenous retroviruses may have made mammalian development possible, and how significant portions of the microbial world may still be unknown. Section 3: Engineering by Evolution Presented by Frances Arnold This was quite interesting. As an engineer, Dr. Arnold is interested in making cells and their enzymes do stuff, so she works on improving their abilities. There is tremendous diversity of amino acid sequences (i.e. proteins) in nature, but it represents only a small amount of the possible combinations of amino acids. Most such combinations are useless as enzymes, but a few are even more effective than anything (yet found) in nature. Dr. Arnold discussed how to find these combinations. Here is the paper published about the heat-stable cellulases that I discussed: Wu and Arnold, 2013, Biotechnol. Bioeng. 110:1874 doi: 10.1002/bit.24864. Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe at iTunes, check out the show at Twitter or Facebook