The distal colon functions as a bioreactor and harbors an enormous amount of bacteria in a mutualistic relationship with the host. The microbiota have to be kept at a safe distance to prevent inflammation, something that is achieved by a dense inner mucus layer that lines the epithelial cells. The large polymeric nets made up by the heavily O-glycosylated MUC2 mucin forms this physical barrier....

Postpartum uterine infections result from uterine contamination with bacteria during parturition. The prevalence of uterine infections varies considerably among studies. Uterine infection implies adherence of pathogenic organisms to the mucosa, colonization or penetration of the epithelium, and/or release of bacterial toxins that lead to establishment of uterine disease. The development of uter...

SslE is a zinc-metalloprotease involved in the degradation of mucin substrates and recently proposed as a potential vaccine candidate against pathogenic E. coli. In this paper, by exploiting a human in vitro model of mucus-secreting cells, we demonstrated that bacteria expressing SslE have a metabolic benefit which results in an increased growth rate postulating the importance of this antigen i...

The study investigated wastewater treatment in an aerobic reactor with activated sludge exposed to static magnetic field (SMF) with mean induction of 8.1 mT. The efficiency of chemical oxygen demand removal was about 90% in a control reactor and an SMF-exposed reactor. Although the nitrification efficiency was higher than 95% in both reactors, the activity of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria was high...

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a "green chemical" that has various cleaning and disinfectant uses, including as an anti-bacterial agent for hygienic and medical treatments. However, its efficacy is limited against biofilm-producing bacteria, because of poor penetration into the protective, organic matrix. Here we show new applications for ferromagnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4, MNPs) with peroxidase-l...

Host range mutants were derived from bacteriophages PK1A and PK1E specific for the K1 polysialic acid capsule of Escherichia coli. The mutants were selected for their ability to infect E. coli bacteria with a low level of the K1 capsule. A specific loss of the cleaving activity of the phage endosialidase was observed in all the mutants, while the ability to bind specifically to the polysialic a...

Lipopolysaccharide is a virulent cell membrane component of Gram negative bacteria. It is also a potent activator of immune system capable of triggering cytokine release from cells of different origin. Life threatening diseases as septic shock following infection with Gram negative bacteria is mediated mainly by LPS (Kawaiand Akira, 2010). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), is a complex structure and is...

The rice seedling blight fungus Rhizopus microsporus and its endosymbiont Burkholderia rhizoxinica form an unusual, highly specific alliance to produce the highly potent antimitotic phytotoxin rhizoxin. Yet, it has remained a riddle how bacteria invade the fungal cells. Genome mining for potential symbiosis factors and functional analyses revealed that a type 2 secretion system (T2SS) of the ba...

The role of adherent-invasive E. coli (AIEC) in Crohn disease (CD) has been in debate for decades. AIEC bacteria are found in the small intestine of patients with chronic CD, but it has remained unclear whether this infection is causal or secondary to underlying immune deficiencies in CD patients. In this issue of the JCI, Chassaing and colleagues demonstrate that AIEC bacteria express an adher...

Dissemination of viable tubercle bacilli from the lung is a critical event in the establishment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We examined the possibility that M. tuberculosis bacteria could infect and damage lung epithelial cells to determine whether direct penetration of the alveolar epithelium is a plausible route of M. tuberculosis infection. While both virulent H37Rv tubercle bac...