Microbes help giant pandas overcome meat-eating heritage: Nature Newsgiant pandas don't digest bamboo by themselves. Microorganisms in their guts may help the endangered animals to subsist on plants
despite a gut that is better suited to eating meat, finds an analysis published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
for example, cows and other ruminants have complicated digestive systems involving multiple stomachs filled with microbes that process plants many times to extract the maximum nutrition.
and neither produce the enzymes necessary to digest cellulose nor harbour the same microbes as ruminants.
A broad survey of animal gut microbes found that pandas'microorganisms resembled those of black bears, polar bears and other meat-eaters3.
and his colleagues took a closer look at the microbes that live in the guts of giant pandas1.
the researchers determined the different kinds of bacteria present, as well as the identity of thousands of microbial genes.
and lifestyles the captive pandas eat a more diverse diet that includes fruit and milk they tended to harbour similar microbe species in their guts.
Wei's team found that samples from both groups contained previously unknown genes produced by Clostridium bacteria,
These microbes are part of a suite of evolutionary adaptations alongside powerful jaws and teeth, and pseudo-thumbs, bones that allow them to grip plant stalks that help pandas to live on bamboo,
the golden mosaic virus. Approved on 15 september by the Brazilian National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBIO),
Plant Microbe Interact. 20,717-726; 2007). ) A product of more than a decade of homegrown research, the bean could begin appearing on tables across the country as early as 2014.
000 hectares of land on which the golden mosaic virus is so prevalent that farmers cannot grow beans at all at present.
Margulis pioneered the now-accepted idea that the eukaryotic cell originated in fusions between different bacteria;
organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts were originally free-living bacteria before they were absorbed by another cell.
Pakistan and Afghanistan) where wild poliovirus (WPV) is endemic. India reported only one confirmed WPV case this year
Caution urged for mutant flu workwhy would scientists deliberately create a form of the H5n1 avian influenza virus that is probably highly transmissible in humans?
if the virus escaped from the lab. For the scientists who have created the mutated strains of the H5n1 virus,
found that just five mutations allowed avian H5n1 to spread easily among ferrets, which are a good proxy for how flu behaves in other mammals,
39 flu researchers declared a 60-day pause in the creation of lab mutant strains of the H5n1 avian flu virus. The hiatus,
And they all agree that the new research has done the world a service by showing that H5n1 seems capable of evolving the ability to spread rapidly among humans,
and international organizations to ramp up their funding of efforts to control outbreaks of the H5n1 virus in poultry,
Yet surveillance of H5n1 in poultry worldwide is patchy, particularly in poorer countries, where the virus is prevalent.
Last year, global surveillance resulted in partial sequences from just 160 H5n1 isolates being submitted to Genbank,
Genbankmoreover, if H5n1 surveillance in poultry is poor, the situation is far worse in pigs,
H5n1 infections in pigs are uncommon and cause only mild illness, creating little economic incentive to monitor them4.
Genbank contains partial sequences from just 24 pig H5n1 isolates. Yet pigs are a likely source of a human pandemic H5n1 virus
because they are susceptible to both human and avian viruses, creating opportunities for genetic reassortment in co-infected animals.
But even if a candidate pandemic H5n1 virus was detected in poultry, culling flocks to eliminate it would be no mean feat.
H5n1 has become endemic in many countries, including China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Egypt,
The relative ease of making H5n1 transmissible between mammals in the lab should now prompt the world to address these glaring inadequacies in surveillance
H5n1 is far from being the only flu virus that poses a pandemic threat. But he believes that more extensive genetic surveillance could eventually pay off."
Yasuo Yoshikuni and his colleagues at the Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California, engineered the bacterium Escherichia coli
and have turned to different feedstocks including switchgrass, the succulent plant jatropha, cyanobacteria and green algae. However, producing biofuels from sugar cane
which is a complex polysaccharide and tricky for microbes to digest.""The carbohydrates are compared rather exotic to traditional terrestrial sources like corn
So using Vibrio splendidus, a marine microbe that can digest brown seaweed, Yoshikuni and his team isolated a biochemical pathway that breaks down alginate.
They inserted the genes responsible into a strain of E coli, which could then digest the alginate into simple sugars.
This strain of E coli could, in theory, be engineered to produce a variety of other useful chemicals and fuels."
which microbes acquire resistance to the drugs. On 4 january, the agency banned unapproved uses of cephalosporins in cattle, pigs,
because overuse of the drugs is"likely to contribute to cephalosporin-resistant strains of certain bacterial pathogens.
) Although it is accepted widely that overusing antibiotics can be a major driver of resistance in microbes,
Synbio troubles US synthetic biology firm Amyris which engineers microbes to process plant sugars into useful chemicals saw its share price plunge by 28%on 10 february,
also said that it would not use its own microbe vats to produce synthetic fuels,
and public safety, relating to unpublished work on mutant, transmissible strains of the H5n1 Influenza a virus. See page 289 for more on the flu-virus debate. go. nature. com/pf7bwv20-24 february Marine scientists'responses to the Gulf of mexico oil spill in 2010 are discussed among topics at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt lake city, Utah
The analysis covered all subtypes of flu virus, not just H5n1. That s important, says Malik Peiris, a flu virologist and surveillance expert at the University of Hong kong,
because"H5n1 is not the sole pandemic candidate, and low pathogenic viruses are just as likely, if not more likely,
The 2007 peak in avian viral sampling was largely the result of surveys of more than 100,000 wild birds to monitor for the arrival of H5n1 in the Americas1,
2. Also contributing was the sequencing of the H5n1 viral flare that moved from Asia into Europe and Africa in 2005 and 20063,4.
head of the Molecular genetics of RNA VIRUSES lab at the Pasteur institute in Paris. One reason is that many of the virus samples are sequenced in retrospective research studies.
the emergence of pandemic strains such as the 2009 H1n1 pandemic virus. The world is home to some 1 billion domestic pigs, almost half
The 2009 pandemic H1n1 virus, which is now endemic in pigs, is unusual in that it contains the triple reassortant internal gene (TRIG) cassette,
a highly conserved set of six genes that allows the virus to swap genes with flu viruses from other species much more freely than the seasonal H1n1 that circulated before 2009 (see Pandemic 2009 H1n1 virus gives wings to avian flu).
Seasonal H1n1 reassorted sparingly, but"we are noting lots of reassortment between the pandemic virus and endemic swine viruses, says Peiris.
Another pig virus that has the TRIG cassette, H3n2, infected 12 people in the United states in 2011."
The plan would mean fewer blooms of blue-green algae and less risk of acidification of the Lower Lakes.
This'deep sequencing'technique has been used to characterize mixtures of microbes living in environments such as oceans and animal guts.
when cattle are infected with a common liver parasite. The liver fluke Fasciola hepatica was known already to affect the standard skin test for btb,
The USDA and the agrochemical industry are looking into the use of the natural chemical defences of plants and microbes to control weeds.
Its primary component is derived from the soil bacterium Streptomyces and disrupts weed-cell division. Such solutions may be easier on the environment
which transmit the Plasmodium parasite a potent killer that claimed an estimated 655,000 lives in 2010 alone.
has underestimated the risk that livestock will be exposed to microbes escaping from the facility. The largely critical review suggests that the proposed National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF),
or past infection with bacterial food-borne disease. The latest research will help direct efforts
because it contains a gene from the H1n1 pandemic strain that may increase transmissibility among humans.
3 9 august 2012h5n1 moratorium Researchers should continue a self-imposed moratorium on lab studies that give new properties to the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5n1, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute
Rinderpest is as deadly to cattle as highly pathogenic H5n1 avian flu is to chickens. In past decades, outbreaks ripped through herds and wiped out up to 90%of animals, often leaving famine,
XMRV ruled out The retrovirus XMRV is linked not to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS a definitive study that cost US$2. 3 Â million concluded on 18 Â September.
Need for flu surveillance reiteratedthe emergence of the H1n1 influenza virus that leapt from pigs to humans in 2009,
Like that responsible for the 2009 pandemic, the new strain, known as Sw/1204, is a'triple-reassortant'virus that is, one with genes from avian, swine and human flu.
and two H3n2 viruses isolated from pig abattoirs before the 2009 pandemic. Most of these viruses did not cause any signs of serious disease in ferrets.
but not transmissibility, in the pandemic H1n1 strain. NA315N has also been found before, but its role is less clear.
prevented food from being contaminated with dangerous bacteria, bolstered surveillance used to detect contamination problems earlier,
No native microbes were found by an early analysis of the ice on the drill used by a Russian team to penetrate Lake Vostok, a body of water buried deep under Antarctica s ice, in February.
The disease, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis, could cost the government £1  billion (US$1. 6  billion) in control measures and compensation over the next decade.
The plan reflects the reality that"this little microorganism is really getting the better of us,
the disease appears to be caused by bacteria similar to, but distinct from, the bacteria that cause the better known Lethal Yellowing disease that attacks palm species. Ironically,
PNG was selected as the site for the gene bank in the 1990s because the country was relatively free of coconut pests and diseases.
But scientists are just learning the intricacies of this interplay between the Ophiocordyceps parasitic fungus
And close examination of the infected ant corpses has revealed an even newer level of spooky savagery other fungi often parasitize the zombie-ant fungus parasite itself.
added together, make this parasite one of the most insidious infections or perhaps that honor goes to the parasite that ultimately kills the killer parasite.
Deadly infection This clever Ophiocordyceps fungus depends on ants to reproduce and spread, but it has found an abundant host animal.
however, cannot live without the winning ants'continued success. It appears to be an obligate parasite,
and they reveal the parasite and host as a common arrangement but not any evidence of actual behavior manipulation.
A parasite's parasite The zombie-ant fungus is not the end of the parasitizing line
however it meets its own death at the work of yet another parasite. Andersen and her colleagues have found that a different breed of fungi grow over the ant corpse and the emerging fungus stalk.
Andersen says of the second-level parasite. Even these hyperparasites seem to be specialized for growing on specific parasitizing fungi.
This makes the hyperparasite another obligate parasite, which depends on the zombie-ant fungus, which depends, in turn, on the carpenter ant colony.
But, if another parasite renders more than half of its mature spores infertile (and more still failing to reproduce due to other interferences),
And Anderson suspects the more people study parasites, the more examples we'll find. Even if they are hiding in darker corners.
She suggests that Neolithic people might have curdled their milk with bacteria that are found in nature, resulting in a clumpy version of modern mozzarella.
The chemical company pins most of the blame for bee declines on parasitic Varroa mites
including, for example, permitted levels of microbes in irrigation water. SOURCE: NIHSUCCESS rates stuck The success rate for grant applicants to the US National institutes of health (NIH) remained unchanged at a historic low of 18%in 2012 (see graph),
from seeds to microbes, prompting them to revisit terminator-like technology.""If I were at Monsanto and
That is the strategy of Ginkgo Bioworks, a four-year-old synthetic biology company in Boston, Massachusetts, that develops made-to-order microbes to churn out marketable chemicals.
Founder Jason Kelly says that the company plans to charge customers on the basis of how much they use the microbes.
, plant, microbe and fungal species on the planet. The collection displays a bias toward charismatic megafauna and thus against the uncharismatic microfauna that keep the planet alive.
well-established avian flu virus H5n1 may help to target H7n9 surveillance and control efforts. The map shows human cases of H7n9 (blue circles) superimposed on a risk map developed for H5n1,
with light yellow representing lowest risk, and darker areas higher risk (risk-map source: ref. 1).(This is a large map
the H5n1 virus that has caused 622 confirmed cases and 371 deaths since 2003, may help inform analyses.
For H5n1, researchers integrate large data sets that combine information on many potentially important factors, such as poultry trade routes,
they add the distribution of H5n1 cases in poultry, and as well as positive H5n1 results from active surveillance in markets.
Marius Gilbert, a co-author of one such study published in PLOS Pathogens in 20111, and an expert in the epidemiology and ecology of avian flu viruses at the Free University of Brussels, says that
H5n1 risk maps are probably a good starting point for identifying areas most at risk. Indeed, when human cases of H7n9 are overlaid on a risk map that Marius
they seem to fall within the highest risk areas for H5n1. The map suggests that high-risk areas for H7n9 might include Shandong province
T. P. V. B. and M. G.,Universitã Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.)The H7n9 virus has mutations that mean that it spreads from birds to humans more easily than does H5n1.
they could play a part by making bees more susceptible to the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and the parasitic fungus Nosema apis,
in just two weeks the number of H7n9 cases has exceeded the 45 H5n1 cases China has reported over the decade
Genetic analyses of the new virus show that it has several mutations making it more adapted to humans than is H5n1.
This looks very different from H5n1, says Farrar. We never saw this number of presumed avian/animal to human transmissions in such a short space of time.
In the case of H5n1, outbreaks in poultry precede human outbreaks and tell public health workers where the public health threat lies.
though it will be at least as challenging as H5n1
Organic pollutants poison the roof of the worldtoxic chemicals are accumulating in the ecosystems of The himalayas and the Tibetan plateau,
Unlike its cousin H5n1 which has killed millions of birds and several hundred people in Asia and elsewhere since 2003 H7n9 does not cause serious bird disease,
which Bahn thinks might be due to changes in soil microbes. Such omissions could lead to a large bias in the models.
In the three human cases, the genes coding for the internal proteins seem to come from H9n2 viruses a class that is endemic in birds,
More specifically, the sequences appear similar to recent H9n2 viruses found in China and South korea.
This is in contrast to the 2009 H1n1 pandemic virus, which was a mix of viruses that infect birds, pigs and humans.
such as the H5n1 virus that has been ravaging poultry flocks in Asia since late 2002. Flu viruses that don t sicken birds can,
which would fit with a picture of a virus much like that of the novel coronavirus that emerged in the middle East last year  that can cause severe disease.
A highly pathogenic virus such as H5n1 is easy to spot because it wipes out flocks,
In 2011, scientists reported the sequence of the plague-causing bacteria responsible for the Black death of the 1340s.
Polio in Somalia Somalia has recorded its first case of wild poliovirus since March 2007 the World health organization said on 11 Â May.
The only other countries that have recorded wild poliovirus cases in 2013 are Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria,
and H5n1. gm. asm. org21-23 may The Pasteur institute in Paris hosts an international symposium on HIV research,
marking 30 Â years since the first reports of a retrovirus associated with AIDS. www. 30yearshiv. org
All they found was a handful of cases of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which causes the disease toxoplasmosis,
However, the BCG vaccine bacillus Calmette-Guã rin, the common vaccine for TB is probably only going to be about 60%effective,
Deadly pig virus slips through US bordersthe pathogen, a type of coronavirus called porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV),
biofilms and zoonotic pathogens is on the agenda at the 5th Congress of European Microbiologists in Leipzig,
The animals responded by making antibodies that blocked that virus but aided infection with the swine flu H1n1,
In the study, H1n1 infected more cells and caused more severe pneumonia in vaccinated piglets than unvaccinated ones.
But some of those antibodies also targeted the stem of H1n1 s haemagglutinin protein, helping that virus fuse to cell membranes.
That made H1n1 more efficient at infecting pigs and causing disease. The finding may give some vaccine developers pause.
and have found evidence that it developed in parallel with a similar bird flu, H7n7, which can infect mammals1.
Although there is no evidence that this H7n7 strain will infect humans, the authors of a study published today in Nature1 say that their finding reinforces the idea that H7 avian viruses are constantly mixing
This raises the threat that H7n7 will reassort and become able to spread to humans.
they found H7n9 and H7n7 to be hybrids of wild Eurasian waterfowl strains, such as H7n3 and H11n9.
The scientists think that those viruses swapped genes in domestic ducks before spreading to chickens, where they traded genes with a common chicken virus, H9n2.
So far, the latest H7n7 strain has infected not a human. But Guan and his team found that ferrets could become infected with the virus
Schouten argues that his product should not be regulated in the same way as genetically modified (GM CROPS that are engineered with bacterial or VIRAL DNA.
At that time, GM CROPS were engineered nearly always using Agrobacterium tumefaciens a bacterial pest that can insert DNA into plant genomes.
In 2011, APHIS regulators announced that a herbicide-tolerant Kentucky bluegrass would not fall under their purview,
because the lawn-and-garden company developing it did not use Agrobacterium or any other plant-pest DNA to engineer the grass.
is trying to use genes from grape varieties to engineer a wine grape that is resistant to Pierce s disease a condition caused by a bacterium that has made it difficult to grow wine grapes in the state.
He notes that Agrobacterium inserts genes more efficiently than the gene-gun method. Although zinc-fingers are appealing for their specificity
This was used because he Agrobacterium to insert the genes it did not matter to regulators that no trace of Agrobacterium DNA remained in his plants.
The genes are derived usually from bacteria that infect plants. The extra EPSP synthase lets the plant withstand the effects of glyphosate.
Biotechnology labs have attempted also to use genes from plants rather than bacteria to boost EPSP-synthase production
in part to exploit a loophole in US law that facilitates regulatory approval of organisms carrying transgenes not derived from bacterial pests.
 The study also challenges the public perception that genetically modified crops carrying extra copies of their own genes are safer than those containing genes from microorganisms."
Coronavirus clues Scientists have an early lead in the search for animal sources of the Middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-Cov),
by adding an antibody to fight rotavirus originally found in llamas in the rice genome.
Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhea in young children and infants, killing more than 520,000 people each year,
The team fed Mucorice-ARP1 to mice they subsequently infected with rotavirus, and found these mice had significantly less virus than mice fed normal rice.
when they are at their most vulnerable to rotavirus, say the researchers. But it had not yet been tested on humans,
since 2009 that rotavirus vaccines be included in national immunisation programmes. But studies have shown since that these vaccines are less effective in developing countries than in industrialised countries,
when rotavirus infection is most likely to prove fatal. The research team found that Mucorice-ARP1 is most effective
Iturriza-Gomara says the rice could also prove useful during rotavirus outbreaks by lowering transmission rates.
Previous clinical trials in Bangladesh have established already that the antibody arp1 can protect against rotavirus.
says Mathuram Santosham, a leading rotavirus researcher at Johns hopkins university, United states, substantially more research is needed to understand the potential impact of this intervention in humans.
including rotavirus vaccines, oral rehydration solution and zinc supplementation, Santosham says. We must ensure that all the currently available tools are made available to every child in the world
and photosynthesis gives way to respiration by plants and microbes. Researchers compared detailed aerial measurements of atmospheric CO2 levels taken in 2009-11 with data from an aerial survey conducted in 1958-61 and observations from Mauna loa and a second long-term monitoring site
But then nitrifying soil bacteria go to work, wreaking environmental havoc. They convert ammonium to nitrate (NO3 Ë),
Called brachialactone, it reduces nitrous oxide emissions by blocking enzymatic pathways in nitrifying bacteria. That leaves more nitrogen available to help the plant to build tissues.
and incorporated it into other crops to encourage them to absorb nitrogen before microbes do.
or agricultural fields fertilized with pig manure are more likely to become infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria,
The two categories refer to where patients acquire the infection as well as the bacteria s genetic lineages,
Researchers did not find any evidence of bacteria belonging to clonal complex 398 (CC398 a MRSA strain classically associated with livestock
Many researchers think that widespread use of antibiotics to encourage growth in farm animals fuels the proliferation of MRSA and other drug-resistant bacteria.
A team of researchers compared the genome sequences of nearly 400 samples of diarrhoea-causing Salmonella enterica collected from people and livestock in Scotland.
They found that bacterial strains infecting humans were largely distinct from those found in local cattle,
The results suggest that mass epidemics may spark from a complicated intermingling of bacteria between animals and humans and from exchanges between different countries
Reid and his colleagues focused on Scottish outbreaks because of the country s ample collection of bacterial samples obtained from both humans and livestock.
when global epidemics of drug-resistant salmonella infections began to arise. Livestock was assumed to be the source of the epidemics
because animals naturally harbour the bacteria. To find out whether this was really the case, the team used whole-genome sequencing to trace the tiny evolutionary steps of the collected bacterial strains.
They analysed 142 samples isolated from Scottish patients and 120 from local animals mostly cows, then compared them with 111 strains collected from people and animals in other countries.
the researchers found that bacteria from humans had more diverse collections of resistance genes than those in local livestock.
The authors therefore suggest that local livestock are not the source of drug-resistant human salmonella outbreaks in Scotland.
Among the biggest threats are fungi and oomycetes, similar but distinct groups of microbes, which cause plant diseases.
It causes damage both directly through feeding and indirectly through the transmission of plant viruses and has wreaked havoc on vegetable and cotton production in all of China s provinces except Tibet.
they are manipulating the vast array of symbiotic microorganisms that live in plants. Next spring, Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies in Seattle, Washington, will bring to market the first commercial product that harnesses such microorganisms known as endophytes to improve crops.
The company plans to sell a mixture of fungi for coating rice and maize (corn) seeds,
In the same way that biologists are now starting to understand the power and influence of the trillions of microbes living in and on the human body,
which expresses a stress-response gene from bacteria. Although symbiotic plant-microbe relationships such as those of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the roots of legumes have been known for many decades,
applied research in this field is relatively recent. Only in the 1970s did researchers realize that a fungus living in symbiosis with tall fescue grass was responsible for making cattle grazing on infected pastures ill.
"Agriculture has spent the past century wiping out the microbes living in our plants, through pesticides and fertilizers.
They think the microbes get in the way, he says.""It s not the paradigm that these microbes are significantly impacting plants.
But they are. There are thought to be millions of endophytic microbes in the world; only a fraction have been identified,
and any given plant can host hundreds. Rodriguez s work began by happy accident. In the early 2000s,
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