Guest Family Physician Commentaries

GUEST COMMENTARIES Diffusion in Biofilms

When microorganisms are grown in planktonic culture, diffusion is usually of little consequence. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that planktonic cultures are generally agitated, and the resulting fluid flow transports solutes rapidly, resulting in a well-mixed system. Transport that occurs as a solute is carried by the bulk flow of a fluid (convection) is generally much fast...

GUEST COMMENTARIES A Unique Sensor Histidine Kinase

Sporulation initiation in Bacillus species is controlled by an extended version of two-component signal transduction systems, termed phosphorelay (4). The cascade of His3Asp3 His3Asp phosphotransfer is typically initiated by the ATPdependent autophosphorylation of the histidine kinase domain. In this issue, Scaramozzino et al. (11) reported that a sporulation histidine kinase, BA2291, in Bacill...

GUEST COMMENTARIES Prokaryotic Glycoproteins: Unexplored but Important

GUEST COMMENTARIES Universal Stress Proteins in Escherichia coli

Multiple members of the UspA family of proteins are found in the genomes of bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, and plants, but the biological and biochemical functions of these proteins are not known. In this issue of Journal of Bacteriology, Nachin et al. (6) describe a functional genomics approach to determining the cellular function(s) of the UspA family of proteins. A complex array of phen...

GUEST COMMENTARIES Bacteriophage P1 in Retrospect and in Prospect

In consenting to publish an extravagantly long report of the most tedious kind—a genome analysis (10)—this journal has shown what appears to be extraordinary indulgence. The genome is that of P1, a bacteriophage that, unlike certain of its cousins, neither raises hopes nor instills fear. P1 phage particles are not the “great hope of universal therapy and prophylaxis,” as Felix d’Hérelle believe...