Regulation of whole bacterial pathogen transcription within infected hosts

Bats as Reservoir Hosts of Human Bacterial Pathogen, Bartonella mayotimonensis

A plethora of pathogenic viruses colonize bats. However, bat bacterial flora and its zoonotic threat remain ill defined. In a study initially conducted as a quantitative metagenomic analysis of the fecal bacterial flora of the Daubenton's bat in Finland, we unexpectedly detected DNA of several hemotrophic and ectoparasite-transmitted bacterial genera, including Bartonella. Bartonella spp. also ...

Gene regulation mediates host specificity of a bacterial pathogen.

Many bacterial plant pathogens have a gene-for-gene relationship that determines host specificity. However, there are pathogens such as the xylem-limited bacterium Xylella fastidiosa that do not carry genes considered essential for the gene-for-gene model, such as those coding for a type III secretion system and effector molecules. Nevertheless, X. fastidiosa subspecies are host specific. A com...

Effects of multiple sources of genetic drift on pathogen variation within hosts.

Changes in pathogen genetic variation within hosts alter the severity and spread of infectious diseases, with important implications for clinical disease and public health. Genetic drift may play a strong role in shaping pathogen variation, but analyses of drift in pathogens have oversimplified pathogen population dynamics, either by considering dynamics only at a single scale-such as within ho...

The Bacterial Pathogen Xylella fastidiosa Affects the Leaf Ionome of Plant Hosts during Infection

Xylella fastidiosa is a plant pathogenic bacterium that lives inside the host xylem vessels, where it forms biofilm believed to be responsible for disrupting the passage of water and nutrients. Here, Nicotiana tabacum was infected with X. fastidiosa, and the spatial and temporal changes in the whole-leaf ionome (i.e. the mineral and trace element composition) were measured as the host plant tra...

Down Regulation of DHFR Promoter Activity by PML Transcription Repressor