Throughout recent history, the tropical regions of the world have been affected more severely by infectious diseases than the temperate world. Much of the success of infectious diseases in that region is due to both biological and environmental factors that encourage high levels of biodiversity in hosts, vectors, and pathogens, and social factors that compromise efforts to control diseases. Sev...

Wheat production around the world is severely compromised by the occurrence of "take-all" disease, which is caused by the soil-borne pathogen Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici (Ggt). In this context, suppressive soils are those environments in which plants comparatively suffer less soil-borne pathogen diseases than expected, owing to native soil microorganism activities. In southern Chile, w...

Rickettsial diseases, important causes of illness and death worldwide, exist primarily in endemic and enzootic foci that occasionally give rise to sporadic or seasonal outbreaks. Rickettsial pathogens are highly specialized for obligate intracellular survival in both the vertebrate host and the invertebrate vector. While studies often focus primarily on the vertebrate host, the arthropod vector...

Multiple strains per plant and root-to-root (not seed-borne) transmission should favor rhizobia that invest in their own reproduction, rather than symbiotic N2 fixation, as analogous factors may favor pathogen virulence. But legumes can select for greater mutualism, controlling nodule O2 supply and reducing reproduction of rhizobia that fix less N2.

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is an important food-borne pathogen. Here, we report the draft whole-genome sequences of nine STEC strains isolated from clinical cases in the United States. This is the first report of such information for STEC of serotypes O69, H11, O145:H25, O118:H16, O91:H21, O146:H21, O45:H2, O128:H2, and O121:H19.

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis is an important zoonotic food-borne pathogen causing serious human illnesses frequently linked to poultry products. Here, we report fully assembled genome sequences of 16 S. Enteritidis strains with common pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and phage types (8, 13, 13a, and 14b) that predominate in North America.

Infections with vector-borne pathogens are a major source of emerging diseases. The ability of vectors to bridge spatial and ecologic gaps between animals and humans increases opportunities for emergence. Small adaptations of a pathogen to a vector can have profound effects on the rate of transmission to humans.

Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is an emerging pathogen in Europe and Asia. We investigated TBEV in Kyrgyzstan by collecting small mammals and ticks from diverse localities and analyzing them for evidence of TBEV infection. We found TBEV circulating in Kyrgyzstan much farther south and at higher altitudes than previously reported.

Listeria monocytogenes is an intracellular pathogen causing food-borne disease. It usually affects the young as well as immunocompromised individuals and is associated with high mortality rates. Cutaneous manifestations have rarely been described. We describe an interesting case of a traveller from the tropics presenting with cutaneous listeriosis and anemia.

Biofilm formation by the gram-positive, motile, food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes was demonstrated to occur by an ordered series of stages. Biofilm development involves flagellum-based motility, which when blocked decreases initial bacterial surface attachment but subsequently leads to the formation of hyperbiofilms, surface-attached communities reaching high density.