RealFeedApp betaMicrobes and viruses
Microbes and viruses: the microbiome, infections, antibiotics and resistance to them.
- Fitness effect of CRISPR immunity varies between phages
The study found that the availability of resistance mutations negatively impacts the fitness advantage of CRISPR immunity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This effect varies predictably across different virulent phages.
- Genome-mining tools identify biosynthetic gene clusters
Researchers from the University of Queensland describe "microbial dark matter" as organisms resistant to conventional cultivation and silent biosynthetic pathways capable of encoding new natural products. In 2019, antimicrobial resistance caused an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide, and traditional screening methods often rediscovered known compounds instead of finding new antibiotic structures.
- Microplastics in water generate DNA-damaging free radicals
Researchers from Columbia University and UC Berkeley demonstrated that microplastics catalyze the formation of DNA-damaging free radicals in water. The findings were published in the journal Nature.
