Molecular Biology and Physiology
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyMycobacterium Phage Butters-Encoded Proteins Contribute to Host Defense against Viral AttackMany sequenced bacterial genomes, including those of pathogenic bacteria, contain prophages. Some prophages encode defense systems that protect their bacterial host against heterotypic viral attack. Understanding the mechanisms undergirding these defense systems is crucial to appreciate the scope of bacterial immunity against viral infections and will be critical for better implementation of phage therapy that would require evasion of...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyCRISPR-CBEI: a Designing and Analyzing Tool Kit for Cytosine Base Editor-Mediated Gene InactivationLife science has been in pursuit of precise and efficient genome editing in living cells since the very beginning of the first restriction cloning attempt. The introduction of RNA-guided CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases contributed to this ultimate goal through their ability to deliver a double-strand break (DSB) to a precise target location in various species, obsoleting the preceding editing tools, such as zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyCharting the Metabolic Landscape of the Facultative Methylotroph Bacillus methanolicusMethanol is inexpensive, is easy to transport, and can be produced both from renewable and from fossil resources without mobilizing arable lands. As such, it is regarded as a potential carbon source to transition toward a greener industrial chemistry. Metabolic engineering of bacteria and yeast able to efficiently consume methanol is expected to provide cell factories that will transform methanol into higher-value chemicals in the so-...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyA Decrease in Transcription Capacity Limits Growth Rate upon Translation InhibitionExposure of bacteria to sublethal concentrations of antibiotics can lead to bacterial adaptation and survival at higher doses of inhibitors, which in turn can lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. The presence of sublethal concentrations of antibiotics targeting translation results in an increase in the amount of ribosomes per cell but nonetheless a decrease in the cells’ growth rate. In this work, we have found that...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyPivotal Roles for pH, Lactate, and Lactate-Utilizing Bacteria in the Stability of a Human Colonic Microbial EcosystemLactate is formed by many species of colonic bacteria, and can accumulate to high levels in the colons of inflammatory bowel disease subjects. Conversely, in healthy colons lactate is metabolized by lactate-utilizing species to the short-chain fatty acids butyrate and propionate, which are beneficial for the host. Here, we investigated the impact of continuous lactate infusions (up to 20 mM) at two pH values (6.5 and 5.5) on human...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyNegative Interplay between Biofilm Formation and Competence in the Environmental Strains of Bacillus subtilisThe soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis can form robust biofilms, which are important for its survival in the environment. B. subtilis also exhibits natural competence. By investigating competence development in B. subtilis in...
Methods and Protocols | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyBenchmarking Bacterial Promoter Prediction Tools: Potentialities and LimitationsThe correct mapping of promoter elements is a crucial step in microbial genomics. Also, when combining new DNA elements into synthetic sequences, predicting the potential generation of new promoter sequences is critical. Over the last years, many bioinformatics tools have been created to allow users to predict promoter elements in a sequence or genome of interest. Here, we assess the predictive power of some of the main prediction tools...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyBioinformatic Mapping of Opine-Like Zincophore Biosynthesis in BacteriaBacteria must acquire essential nutrients, including zinc, from their environment. For bacterial pathogens, this necessitates overcoming the host metal-withholding response known as nutritional immunity. A novel type of zinc uptake mechanism that involves the bacterial production of a small zinc-scavenging molecule was recently described in the human pathogens Staphylococcus...
Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologySystematic Reconstruction of the Complete Two-Component Sensorial Network in Staphylococcus aureusBacteria are able to sense environmental conditions and respond accordingly. Their sensorial system relies on pairs of sensory and regulatory proteins, known as two-component systems (TCSs). The majority of bacteria contain dozens of TCSs, each of them responsible for sensing and responding to a different range of signals. Traditionally, the function of each TCS has been determined by analyzing the changes in gene expression caused by...
Editor's Pick Research Article | Molecular Biology and PhysiologyDevelopment of a Counterselectable Transposon To Create Markerless Knockouts from an 18,432-Clone Ordered Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin Mutant ResourceWhile speeding up research for many fields of biology (e.g., yeast, plant, and Caenorhabditis elegans), genome-wide ordered mutant collections are still elusive in mycobacterial research. We developed methods to generate such resources in a time- and cost-effective manner and developed a newly engineered transposon from which unmarked mutants can be efficiently...