Tel Aviv ― Could the bacteria that we carry in our bodies decide who we marry? According to a new study from Tel Aviv University, the answer lies in the gut of a small fruit fly.
Prof. Eugene Rosenberg, Prof. Daniel Segel and doctoral stude…
Scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and their collaborators have deciphered and analyzed the complete genome sequence of Coxiella burnetii, a potential bioterror agent that causes Q Fever. C. burnetii, which was first isolated as the cause of Q Fever in Australia in 1937, is typically found in farm animals but also infects humans, including an epidemic that sickened many soldiers in Europe during World War II. Typically, Q Fever does not kill people, but causes fever and other flu-like symptoms.
A University of Washington study is the first to provide visualizations of tuberculosis infections in an intact living organism and reveals how tuberculous granulomas, the tight aggregates of macrophages that are the hallmarks of this infection, are formed within infected organisms (Macrophages are a specialized class of white blood cells that patrol tissues and ingest foreign particles, such as bacteria and viruses, as well as dead and dying cells. Macrophages provide the backbone of the immune system.)
The lowly and somewhat gruesome bloodworm may have a few lessons to teach material scientists.The critter apparently is the first ever to be found to use a copper-containing mineral structure as part of its skeleton. The finding is remarkable first because the amount of copper detected in the jaw tip of the marine worm would normally be toxic to an organism. Second, the copper also occurs in non-mineral form in the bloodworm jaw where it may act as a sort of bridge, cross-linking long chains of fibrous proteins. And that has appealing commercial posibilities. “The marriage of protein with copper mineral as well as with bound copper ions is an intriguing concept per se but may also serve as a design prototype for new materials that need to be hard, lightweight, and durable.”