Iron sulfur (Fe/S) proteins are ubiquitous and participate in multiple biological processes, from photosynthesis to DNA repair. Iron and sulfur are highly reactive chemical species, and the mechanisms allowing the multiprotein systems ISC and SUF to assist Fe/S cluster formation in vivo have attracted considerable attention. Here, A-Type components of these systems (ATCs for A-Type Carriers) ar...

Lactobacillus sakei is one of the most important lactic acid bacteria of meat and fermented meat products. It is able to degrade arginine with ammonia and ATP production by the arginine deiminase pathway (ADI). This pathway is composed of three enzymes: arginine deiminase, ornithine transcarbamoylase and carbamate kinase, and an arginine transport system. The transcription of the ADI pathway is...

Bottom ash is the main solid residue (in weight) which is produced by municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) facilities. To be reused in public works, it has to be stored previously a few months. This material is composed primarily of a mineral matrix but also contains unburnt organic matter. The mineral content and its change in the course of aging are relatively well-known, in contrast wit...

Tuberculosis is a leading global killer that has not been effectively controlled to date. The ability of the causative agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to become dormant is one of the major reasons for extended chemotherapeutic regimens and wide epidemicity. The underlying mechanisms of M. tuberculosis dormancy are not fully understood. In the present work, a LuxR family transcription factor ...

Chronic osteomyelitis of maxilla and mandible is rare in industrialized countries and its occurrence in developing countries is associated with trauma and surgery, and its microbial etiology has not been studied thoroughly. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the microbiota associated with osteomyelitis of mandible or maxilla from some Brazilian patients. After clinical and radiograph...

Ehrlich ascites cells were cultured under different O2 partial pressures from less than 0.1 ppm to 2 x 10(5) ppm. During the artificial hypoxia and following reoxygenation the DNA synthesis rate was measured and the relative frequency of replicon initiations was examined by analyzing the length distributions of replicative daughter strand DNA. These studies were complemented by evaluation of gr...

Endodontic infections are mixed aerobic-anaerobic infections and several microbial groups associated to these pathologies are also involved in orofacial infections. The goal of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility of microorganisms isolated from endodontic infections to beta-lactams and metronidazole and verify the production of beta-lactamases. Clinical specimens were collected from 5...

Oxygen is not only one of life's essential elements but also a source of protein damage, mutagenesis, and ageing. Many proteome adaptations have been proposed to tackle such stresses and we assessed them using comparative genomics in a phylogenetic context. First, we find that aerobiosis is a trait with important phylogenetic inertia but that oxygen content in proteins is not. Instead, oxygen c...

BACKGROUND Both pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) and cancer cells have been described as having similar metabolic pathways, most notably a penchant for favoring glycolysis even under aerobiosis, suggesting common themes that might be explored for both stem cell differentiation and anti-oncogenic purposes. METHODS A search of the scientific literature available in the PubMed/Medline was conducted...