Animals defend themselves against invading pathogenic micro-organisms by utilizing cationic anti-microbial peptides, which rapidly kill various micro-organisms without exerting toxicity against the host. Physicochemical peptide-lipid interactions provide attractive mechanisms for innate immunity. Many of these peptides form amphipathic secondary structures (alpha-helices and beta-sheets) which ...

Probiotic micro-organisms have been used for many years. Originating as food supplements, they are now most often administered orally and offer an attractive alternative for treating of intestinal disorders. A better understanding of the mechanisms by which these micro-organisms act has now opened up possibilities for designing new probiotic strains. Through genetic engineering, it is possible ...

Significant progress has been made in the fabrication of micron and sub-micron structures whose motion can be controlled in liquids under ambient conditions. The aim of many of these engineering endeavors is to be able to build and propel an artificial micro-structure that rivals the versatility of biological swimmers of similar size, e.g. motile bacterial cells. Applications for such artificia...

1. Predators often prey on individuals that are sick or otherwise weakened. Although previous studies have shown higher abundance of parasites in prey, whether prey have elevated loads of micro-organisms remains to be determined. 2. We quantified the abundance of bacteria and fungi on feathers of woodpigeons Columba palumbus L., jays Garrulus glandarius L. and blackbirds Turdus merula L. that e...

Bacterial infection relies on the micro-organism's ability to orchestrate the host's cell signalling such that the immune response is not activated. Conversely, the host cell has dedicated signalling pathways for coping with intrusions by pathogens. The autophagy of foreign micro-organisms (known as xenophagy) has emerged as one of the most powerful of these pathways, although the triggering mo...

In this review article are studied the methods for preparation of micro dispersed colloid silver nanoparticles and scopes of their practical application in nano-industry, bionanotechnology, medicine and allied industries, including water processing and water purification techniques. The mechanisms of bactericidal influence of colloid silver on a microbial cell are discussed from the point of vi...

E-nose (Electronic nose), which is an array of chemical sensors, is widely used in food industry and pollution control. Nowadays e-nose technology has become powerful tool to evaluate the aroma compounds during the quality control process. This work is intended to detect biological water contaminants like coliform group of bacteria in drinking water. However, a number of limitations are associa...

A retrospective review of the microbiological and clinical data of 17 specimens obtained from axillary hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) over a period of 6 years was undertaken to study the aerobic and anaerobic microbiology of this condition. A total of 42 bacterial isolates (2.5 per specimen) were obtained, 12 aerobic or facultative (0.7 per specimen) and 30 anaerobic or micro-aerophilic (1.8 per...

We investigated the autonomous bottom-up fabrication of three-dimensional honeycomb cellulose structures, using Gluconacetobacter xylinus as a bacterial nanoengine, on cellulose honeycomb templates prepared by casting water-in-oil emulsions on glass substrates (Kasai and Kondo, Macromol. Biosci., 4, 17-21, 2004). The template film had a unique molecular orientation state along the honeycomb fra...