The evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance determinants in human and animal pathogens has caused increased morbidity and mortality of infection throughout the world, with correspondingly staggering increases in cost to health-care systems (Davies and Davies, 2010). Although a proportion of this epidemic is a result of mutation, it is considered that most occurs through the acquisition of...

There is considerable information about the genetic control of the processes by which mycelial Streptomyces bacteria form spore-bearing aerial hyphae. The recent acquisition of genome sequences for 16 species of actinobacteria, including two streptomycetes, makes it possible to try to reconstruct the evolution of Streptomyces differentiation by a comparative genomic approach, and to place the r...

Three novel endophytic streptomycetes have been isolated and characterized from plants with ethnobotanical uses on the Malay Peninsula including: Thottea grandiflora (family -Aristolochiaceae), Polyalthia spp. (family -Annonaceae), and Mapania sp. (family -Cyperaceae). Each isolate, as studied by scanning electron microscopy, has small hyphae, and produces typical barrel-shaped spores arising b...

tion, where two substances of low toxicity produce greater activity than can be accounted for from the additive effect. The antibiotic concentrations of 300 and 400 ,ug in combination with the cell concentrations within the limits of 5 X 105 to 20 X 105 per chick embryo were considerably more effective in potentiation of embryo death than were the 100 and 200 ug levels of antibiotic combined wi...