#Vaccinating cattle against E coli could cut human cases of infection by 85 percentvaccinating cattle against the E coli O157 bacterium could cut the number of human cases of the disease by 85%according to scientists.
The bacteria which cause severe gastrointestinal illness and even death in humans are spread by consuming contaminated food and water or by contact with livestock feces in the environment.
Cattle are the main reservoir for the bacterium. The vaccines that are available for cattle are used rarely
The research was lead by a team of researchers at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh the Royal Veterinary College Scotland's Rural College Health Protection Scotland and the Scottish E coli O157/VTEC
and molecular data to examine the risks of E coli O157 transmission from cattle to humans
The risk of E coli O157 infection is particularly significant when the cattle are'super-shedding'--excreting extremely high numbers of bacteria in their feces for a limited period of time.
Vaccines against the bacteria exist that can reduce super-shedding. As a consequence the researchers predict that vaccinating cattle could reduce human cases by nearly 85 percent far higher than the 50 percent predicted by studies simply looking at the efficacy of current vaccines in cattle.
These figures provide strong support for the adoption of vaccines by the livestock industry and work is now underway to establish the economic basis for such a program of vaccination.
E coli O157 is a serious gastrointestinal illness. The economic impact is also serious--for instance studies in the US suggest that healthcare lost productivity
and food product recalls due to E coli O157 can cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Treating cattle in order to reduce the number of human cases certainly makes sense from a human health perspective
In Scotland an average of 235 culture positive cases of E coli O157 infection per year (i e. people who had the organism in their stools) were notified to Health Protection Scotland from 2008 to 2012.
This is problematic because E coli O157 does not harm cattle and assessing the impact of treatment involves coordination between human and veterinary health practitioners.
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health have for the first time found an association between living in proximity to high-density livestock production and community-acquired infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus commonly known as MRSA.
and applied to crop fields contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria resistance genes and about 75 percent of the antibiotics consumed by the animals.
American foulbrood is caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae which affects the larval stage of honeybees.
and a carbo-loading bacteria may determine how well tropical forests can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere according to a Princeton university-based study.
The legumes'secret is a process known as nitrogen fixation carried out in concert with infectious bacteria known as rhizobia
Legumes use secretions to invite rhizobia living in the soil to infect their roots and the bacteria signal back to initiate nodule growth.
The single-celled amoebas crawl through the soil eating bacteria until food becomes scarce. Then the amoebas gather by the tens of thousands to form a multicellular slug
All Dicty eat bacteria but some clones (genetically identical amoebas) also farm them --or at any rate they gather up the bacteria carry them to new sites and harvest them prudently.
The farmer clones also carry bacteria that secrete chemicals to fend off amoebae that don't bother to do their own farming.
Not only do these defensive companions inhibit the growth of nonfarmers they somehow stimulate the growth of the farmers.
I saw that some of them carried bacteria in their sorae which were supposed to be sterile.
A simple assay confirmed that the sorae from these clones seeded new patches of bacterial growth
while those from clones that did not have did bacteria not. It looked like the amoebas were carrying the bacteria around to make sure they would always have food.
But other scientists weren't convinced. After all the amoebas are grown on bacteria in the lab;
perhaps they had picked just up these bacteria by accident. At first it was an uphill battle Brock said.
But by isolating new clones from the wild that also carried edible bacteria in their sorae
and running the clones through assays that showed for example that farmers cleansed of bacteria would pick them up again the scientists eventually made their case.
As the researchers said in a Nature paper published in 2011 about a third of the wild clones carry seed and prudently harvest edible bacteria qualifying as farmers albeit primitive ones.
Amoebas carrying chemical weaponsbut the situation was actually more complex than this. Brock quickly realized that some of the bacteria found in association with the Dicty weren't edible.
I was sending the BACTERIAL DNA out to be sequenced and looking up the sequence when it came back.
Sometimes the bacteria were similar to human pathogens. Again it wasn't clear what was going on Brock said.
Were these bacteria parasites on the amoebas? Were they free riders the amoebas picked up accidentally
when they picked up the food bacteria? Were they pathogens that were making the amoebas sick?
But the amoebas carrying these bacteria seemed to be thriving rather than sick. And she also knew that in other systems farmers carry defensive symbionts.
Leafcutter ants for example carry bacteria that help prevent other fungi from contaminating their fungal gardens.
Could the inedible bacteria on the Dicty be defensive symbionts? Sure enough assays showed that when farmers carried certain nonedible strains nonfarmer spore production was reduced in some cases by more than half.
Supernatants (washings) from bacterial cultures had similar effects suggesting that the bacteria were secreting biomolecules that poisoned nonfarmers preventing them from eating the farmers'crops.
and the bacteria are cross feeding. They're probably providing something for those bacteria and the bacteria are providing something for them.
I'm currently trying to figure that out she said. Does it pay to farm?
The big question for the team all evolutionary biologists was why is farming evolutionarily stable among Dicty?
Farmers save roughly half the bacteria available to them forgoing considerable food to save some for dispersal at a new site.
#Bacteria enhance growth of fruit trees up to 40 percentimprovement in reforestation and agriculture is possible thanks to the work of scientists in the Center of Research
and bacteria to promote development and health in trees which have enabled them to accelerate growth of different species up to 40 percent.
He also explains that the beneficial bacteria are located in the immediate area surrounding the root
or rhizosphere and among these bacteria are classified a group as growth promoters which fulfill the function of helping the plant development
However not all bacteria or fungi perform with the same efficiency. For this reason a very important part of the research consisted in selecting the best strains specific for oaks pines mesquites acacias and fruit trees.
They generally provide the same protection against bacteria as the natural skin if the foods are handled under sterile conditions
Brown and other scientists are looking for bacteria that are highly efficient in breaking down lignocellulose
Bacteria in giant panda digestive tracts are prime candidates. Not only do pandas digest a diet of bamboo
but have a short digestive tract that requires bacteria with unusually potent enzymes for breaking down lignocellulose.
Working with scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Brown's team identified bacteria that break down lignocellulose into simple sugars which can be fermented into bioethanol.
They also found bacteria that can take those sugars and transform them into oils and fats for biodiesel production.
Brown said that either the bacteria themselves or the enzymes in them that actually do the work could be part of the industrial process.
They season the wood for barrels and dry it outside or indoors a step that exposes it to fungi and bacteria.
Estimates of the amount of missing data were based on 7539 peer-reviewed studies about animals fungi seed plants bacteria and various microscopic organisms.
Bovine TB is primarily a disease of cattle caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis. The disease is hugely expensive costing the Government over £91 million in England in 2010/11.
By combining the genomic sequences of the bacteria with information about when and where the sample was isolated
While we do not yet have sufficient data to be definitive it is clear that whole genome sequencing of the bacterium will play an important part in solving this puzzle.
Crop pests include fungi bacteria viruses insects nematodes viroids and oomycetes. The diversity of crop pests continues to expand
one against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and another against another type of worm. To discover these targets the team determined
and successes. A proof of principleas a proof of principle Pakrasi and his colleagues plan to develop the synthetic biology tools needed to excise the nitrogen fixation system in one species of cyanobacterium (a phylum of green bacteria formerly considered to be algae)
Amazing cycling chemistryall cyanobacteria photosynthesize storing the energy of sunlight temporarily in ATP molecules and eventually in carbon-based molecules but only some of them fix nitrogen.
Studies of the evolutionary history of 49 strains of cyanobacteria suggest that their common ancestor was capable of fixing nitrogen
Cyanobacteria that both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen separate the two activities either in space or in time.
The one they've picked as the host Synechocystis 6803 is studied the best strain of cyanobacteria.
The scientists will need to figure out how to connect the transplanted nitrogen-fixing gene cluster to Synechocystis'clock.
Like every cyanobacterium Pakrasi said Synechocystis has a diurnal rhythm. But how to tap into that rhythm we don't know yet.
and E coli bacteria have joined forces to turn tough waste plant material into isobutanol a biofuel that matches gasoline's properties better than ethanol.
Escherichia coli meanwhile is relatively easy for researchers to genetically modify. James Liao's lab at the University of California-Los angeles provided E coli bacteria that had been engineered to convert sugars into isobutanol.
The Lin group put both microbe species into a bioreactor and served up corn stalks and leaves.
The harmonious coexistence of the fungi and bacteria with stable populations was a key success of the experiment.
Lin's team used game theory to analyze the relationship between the fungi and bacteria. Breaking cellulose down into sugar is hard work
Meanwhile the E coli use the sugars without offering the fungus anything in return which makes it a cheater.
Even so the bacteria didn't take over the colony because the fungi produce the sugars near their cell membranes
The researchers can control E coli's advantage by tweaking how quickly the bacteria grow. Minty and others in Lin's group are now trying to improve on their energy conversion rate
and increase the tolerance of the T. reesei and E coli to isobutanol. The fuel is toxic
Moreover by engineering the bacteria differently they believe their system could produce a variety of petroleum-based chemicals in a sustainable way.
The research could aid in the development of new drugs that use a similar mechanism as melittin's to attack cancer and bacteria.
#MRSA strain in humans originally came from cattlea strain of bacteria that causes skin and soft tissue infections in humans originally came from cattle according to a study to be published in mbio the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The researchers who conducted the genetic analysis of strains of Staphylococcus aureus known as CC97 say these strains developed resistance to methicillin after they crossed over into humans around forty years ago.
The findings highlight the potential for cows to serve as a reservoir for bacteria with the capacity for pandemic spread in humans.
and plasmids are important in order for the bacterium to adapt to different host species says Fitzgerald.
which indicates that the bacteria acquired resistance after they crossed over into humans presumably through exposure to antibiotics prescribed for treating human infections.
Any number of factors could create these differences making pigs--but not cattle--a source of a drug-resistant bacterium.
Human cases of Lyme disease a bacterial illness that can cause serious neurological problems if left untreated are on the rise.
When those carbohydrates are consumed bacteria in the dental plaque on tooth surfaces produce acids says Christine Wu professor of pediatric dentistry
since milk is considered to be cavity-fighting acid production by plaque bacteria can be minimized by mixing it with cereal.
However only a very small number of plants most notably legumes (such as peas beans and lentils) have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Professor Edward Cocking Director of The University of Nottingham's Centre for Crop Nitrogen fixation has developed a unique method of putting nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the cells of plant roots.
when he found a specific strain of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in sugar-cane which he discovered could intracellularly colonise all major crop plants.
It is a naturally occurring nitrogen fixing bacteria which takes up and uses nitrogen from the air.
Plant seeds are coated with these bacteria in order to create a symbiotic mutually beneficial relationship and naturally produce nitrogen.
A billion could benefita benign crystal protein produced naturally by bacteria and used as an organic pesticide could be a safe inexpensive treatment for parasitic worms in humans
These proteins are produced naturally in Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) a bacterium which is applied to crops as a natural insecticide on some organic farms
As shown for the first time in this paper Cry5b can also be expressed in a species of bacterium Bacillus subtilis which is closely related to Bacillus thuringiensis and
which is also related to bacteria which are present in some probiotics says Aroian. In the current research researchers showed that a small dose of Cry5b expressed in this bacterium can achieve a 93 percent elimination of hookworm parasites from infected hamsters.
That says Aroian is substantially better than current drugs. The scientific significance of the research he says is that bacteria similar to those that are food grade
--which are cheap and can readily be produced mass--can be engineered to produce molecules that can cure parasitic diseases.
A new study to be published in Nature's The ISME Journal reveals the profound effect it has on enriching soil with bacteria fungi and protozoa.
and the microbes in it were mostly bacteria However growing oat and pea in the same sample caused a huge shift towards protozoa and nematode worms.
(which include bacteria) and eukaryotes (which include humans plants and animals as well as fungi). After only four weeks of growth the soil surrounding wheat contained about 3%eukaryotes.
This limits scientists to analysing one taxonomic group at a time such as bacteria. It also means that everything present in that group is analysed rather than
Every gram of soil contains over 50000 species of bacteria so the task is enormous.
It is now possible to sequence RNA across kingdoms so a full snapshot can be taken of the active bacteria fungi protozoa and other microbes in the soil.
Seeds can be inoculated with bacteria before planting out just like humans taking a dose of friendly bacteria.
John Innes Centre scientists are already investigating the possibility of engineering cereal crops able to associate with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria normally associated with peas.
and texture while aiding immunity bone health and the growth and balance of important bacteria in the digestive track.
Microbiotas are friendly beneficial bacteria said Kelly A. Tappenden Ph d. Kraft Foods human nutrition endowed professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Parenteral
In recent years some studies have suggested that cranberries prevent UTIS by hindering bacteria from sticking to the walls of the urinary tract thanks to phytochemicals known as proanthocyanidins (PACS.
Yet the mechanisms by which cranberry materials may alter bacterial behaviour have not been understood fully. Now researchers in Mcgill University's Department of Chemical engineering are shedding light on the biological mechanisms by
Nathalie Tufenkji add to evidence of cranberries'effects on UTI-causing bacteria. The findings also point to the potential for cranberry derivatives to be used to prevent bacterial colonization in medical devices such as catheters.
In research results published online last month in the Canadian Journal of Microbiology Prof. Tufenkji and members of her laboratory report that cranberry powder can inhibit the ability of Proteus mirabilis a bacterium frequently implicated in complicated UTIS to swarm on agar plates
and swim within the agar. The experiments also show that increasing concentrations of cranberry powder reduce the bacteria's production of urease an enzyme that contributes to the virulence of infections.
These results build on previous work by the Mcgill lab showing that cranberry materials hinder movement of other bacteria involved in UTIS.
A genome-wide analysis of an uropathogenic E coli revealed that expression of the gene that encodes for the bacteria's flagellar filament was decreased in the presence of cranberry PACS.
The team's findings are significant because bacterial movement is a key mechanism for the spread of infection as infectious bacteria literally swim to disseminate in the urinary tract
and to escape the host immune response While the effects of cranberry in living organisms remain subject to further study our findings highlight the role that cranberry consumption might play in the prevention of chronic infections Tufenkji says.
The current rise of bacterial resistance to antibiotics underscores the importance of developing another approach.
and Materials Engineering finds that cranberry-enriched silicone substrates impaired the spread of Proteus mirabilis. Those results published online in the journal Colloids and Surfaces B:
and filling in uncharted branches in the bacterial and archaeal tree of life. In an international collaboration led by the U s. Department of energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) the most recent findings from exploring microbial dark matter were published online July 14 2013 in the journal Nature.
They observed certain traits in Archaea that previously only were seen in Bacteria and vice versa. One such trait involves an enzyme that bacteria commonly use for creating space within their protective cell wall
which is needed so the cell can for example expand during cell division. As it rather generically cleaves the protective bacterial cell envelope it needs to be regulated very tightly.
For the first time a group of Archaea was found to encode this potent enzyme and the authors hypothesize that Archaea may deploy it as a defense mechanism against attacking Bacteria.
The second contribution arising from the work was the correct reassignment or binning of data of some 340 million DNA fragments from other habitats to the proper lineage.
and are essential for studying bacterial and archaeal diversity and evolution Woyke said. It's a bit like looking at a family tree to figure out who your sisters
The Nature publication Insights into the phylogeny and coding potential of microbial dark matter builds upon a DOE JGI pilot project the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea GEBA:
http://www. jgi. doe. gov/programs/GEBA/)and closely articulates with other international efforts such as the Microbial Earth Project which aims to generate a comprehensive genome catalog of all archaeal and bacterial
One of these red clover is particularly important due to the symbiotic bacteria which live in its roots
#Whole chickens from farmers markets may have more pathogenic bacteriaraw whole chickens purchased from farmers markets throughout Pennsylvania contained significantly higher levels of bacteria that can cause foodborne illness compared to those purchased from grocery stores in the region
according to a small-scale study by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciencesof 100 whole chickens purchased from farmers markets 90 percent tested positive for Campylobacter
and 28 percent harbored Salmonella. By comparison during the same period 20 percent of raw whole organic chickens purchased from grocery stores were found to contain Campylobacter bacteria and 28 percent tested positive for Salmonella.
Just 8 percent of raw whole nonorganic conventionally processed chickens from the grocery stores tested positive for Campylobacter and 52 percent of those contained Salmonella.
Overall the chickens purchased at the farmers markets carried higher bacterial loads than the birds purchased at grocery stores.
The research published online in the Journal of Food safety sheds some doubt on the widely held belief that locally bought poultry is safer according to lead researcher Catherine Cutter professor and food safety extension specialist in the Department of Food Science.
The significantly higher bacteria levels in chickens sold at farmers markets prompted the researchers to look for a cause.
The fact that the chickens from farmers markets had much higher levels of Campylobacter and Salmonella indicated that there's something else going on Cutter said.
So Josh developed a survey for poultry vendors with questions focused on processing methods as well as food safety practices.
Bacteria that cause foodborne illness such as Campylobacter and Salmonella are destroyed by proper cooking of poultry products;
He believes that how bacteria which might carry resistant genes are transmitted to humans must be considered
#Workers at industrial farms carry drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestocka new study found drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock in the noses of industrial livestock workers in North carolina but not in the noses of antibiotic-free livestock workers.
The drug-resistant bacteria examined were Staphylococcus aureus commonly known as Staph which include the well-known bug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
New Staph strains are emerging in people who have close contact with livestock animals and for this reason have been given the name livestock-associated Staph.
While everyone in the study had direct or indirect contact with livestock only industrial workers carried antibiotic-resistant Staph with multiple genetic characteristics linked to livestock.
The study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health the University of North carolina at Chapel hill the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help the George washington University and the Statens Serum Institute
published July 2 by the journal PLOS ONE confirms earlier findings in Iowa and raises concern about antibiotics use in livestock production.
and now North carolina making scientists concerned that these bacteria could follow a similar trajectory into the community.
Like most illnesses caused by bacteria S. aureus infections are treated with antibiotics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention some Staph cannot be killed by antibiotics meaning they are resistant.
MRSA is a strain of Staph bacteria that is resistant to methicillin and certain first-line antibiotics called beta-lactams.
Infections with drug-resistant strains like MRSA can be particularly difficult to treat. The study was based on interviews
and for genetic markers considered to indicate that the bacteria may have come from livestock. This study shows that these livestock-associated strains are present among workers at industrial livestock operations
Workers were not experiencing Staph infections at the time of the study but when antibiotic resistant bacteria do cause infections they can be harder to treat.
Researchers found that S. aureus that were multidrug-resistant were roughly twice as prevalent among individuals exposed to the industrial compared to the antibiotic-free livestock operation environment
Livestock-associated methicillin and multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus is present among industrial not antibiotic-free livestock operation workers in North carolina was written by Jessica L. Rinsky Maya Nadimpalli Steve Wing
We have been seeing an increase in the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria that cause pneumonia (also called BRD) in cattle said Brian Lubbers assistant professor in the diagnostic lab based at Kansas State university.
Many of these bacteria are resistant to not one but almost all of the antibiotics that we use to treat pneumonia in cattle.
They found that over that period a high percentage of M. haemolytica bacteria recovered from cattle lungs were resistant to several of the drugs typically used to treat that pathogen.
or more antimicrobials as the definition of multi-drug resistance 63 percent of the bacteria would be classified as multidrug resistant in 2011 compared with 46 percent in 2010 and 42 percent in 2009.
The questions of how these bacteria develop or where they come from how widespread they are and
UC Davis researchers analyzed the water samples for microbial and nutrient pollution including fecal indicator bacteria fecal coliform E coli nitrogen
and phosphorus. The scientists found that recreation sites were the cleanest with the lowest levels of fecal indicator bacteria.
They found no significant differences in fecal indicator bacteria between grazing lands and areas without recreation or grazing.
The study noted that several regional regulatory programs use different water quality standards for fecal bacteria.
However the U s. EPA states that E coli are better indicators of fecal contamination and provide the most accurate assessment of water quality conditions and human health risks.
Differences in the relative abundance of certain bacterial species in the rootworm gut help the adult rootworm beetles feed on soybean leaves
These bacteria perhaps. Controlling rootworms is an expensive concern faced by all Midwest corn growers said study co-author Joseph Spencer an insect behaviorist at the Illinois Natural history Survey (part of the Prairie Research Institute
Chu found significant and consistent differences in the relative abundance of various types of bacteria in the guts of rotation-resistant and nonresistant rootworms (see graphic.
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