Tag: bacteria

Surface coatings could help reduce the adhesion of marine organisms to ships’ surfaces

January 18, 2021

Marine organisms such as microorganisms and macroscopic organisms (such as tubeworm) secrete various adhesion molecules that facilitate their adhesion to ships’ surface. Known as biofouling, this process adds a layer of irregularly shaped material to the ship hull, which increases drag and fuel cost. Thus, different approaches have been investigated for reducing the adhesion of … More Surface coatings could help reduce the adhesion of marine organisms to ships’ surfaces

Anti-CRISPR proteins provide immunity to invading bacteriophages

August 12, 2020

Although commonly known as a genome editing tool, the original function of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats) is to provide adaptive immunity to bacteria. To do this, CRISPR catalogues short snippets of genetic material from invading bacteriophages into a repeat sequence, which upon transcription, would provide an ensemble of short RNA sequences in … More Anti-CRISPR proteins provide immunity to invading bacteriophages

Use of bacteria in locating and killing cancer cells

April 13, 2020

Due to the recalcitrant nature of cancer cells and tumours, multiple approaches have been developed for locating and targeting cancer cells. Some of the approaches use nanoparticles able to home in to cancer cells through selective binding of antigens present on the cancer cells to functionalized nanoparticles. However, a different approach uses bacteria for locating … More Use of bacteria in locating and killing cancer cells

Logic of growth for microbes

January 6, 2020

Energy obtained from nutrients are typically divided between cell maintenance and biomass formation. However, the proportion of nutritional energy that goes into either cell maintenance and biomass formation differs between different microbial species. Thus, what are the factors that govern the decision for partitioning energy between cell maintenance and biomass formation? And, does the amount … More Logic of growth for microbes

Cellular transporters are critical elements of a successful whole cell biocatalytic system

October 1, 2019

Whole cell biocatalysis refers to the use of cells as platforms for conducting enzymatic reactions. Such enzymatic reactions could be those well-known to biotechnology or ones newly developed to allow biological systems to generate organic compounds. Typically, whole cell biocatalytic reactions require the provision of a substrate which would subsequently be converted into the product … More Cellular transporters are critical elements of a successful whole cell biocatalytic system

Emerging view posits that eukaryotic cells descended from archaea

August 23, 2019

Archaea, eukaryotes and bacteria constitutes the three domains of life. Each is a distinct branch on the evolutionary tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Specifically, 16S rRNA is the first molecular living fossil able to chronicle the evolutionary trajectories of different species, and by comparing the evolutionary distance between them, a phylogenetic tree with … More Emerging view posits that eukaryotic cells descended from archaea

Visualizing mutational events in bacteria

May 3, 2019

A recent article in Science, Vol. 359, Issue 6381, pp. 1283-1286 (Link) visualized mutational events in bacterial cells at the single cell level using a combination of microfluidics cellular assays and fluorescent readout. The research opens up our understanding of how mutations are potentiated and propagated from parent to daughter cells. Furthermore, it reveals more … More Visualizing mutational events in bacteria

Implementation of protein glycosylation in bacteria

April 24, 2019

Attachment of sugar molecules on biomolecules such as hormones is a key step in biologics manufacturing and is typically carried in eukaryotic cells which have the protein glycosylation machinery. However, eukaryotic hosts are typically more difficult to manipulate compared to prokaryotic cells such as bacteria, and this adds to the cost of biologics manufacturing. Secondly, … More Implementation of protein glycosylation in bacteria

Mechanism underlying the emergence of antimicrobial resistance

December 27, 2018

Resistance to antimicrobial compounds is commonly thought to arise due to emergence of mutations after exposure of the microbes to the compound. This is not entirely true. What actually happens is that mechanisms underlying resistance to an antimicrobial compound exist in a few subpopulations of the species prior to exposure of the population to antimicrobial … More Mechanism underlying the emergence of antimicrobial resistance

Light-based patterning of bacterial cells through induction of biofilm formation processes

August 20, 2018

Microbes do not live alone, rather, they assemble into multi-species and multicellular assemblage known as biofilms on various surfaces. Specifically, microbial cells often assemble into biofilm matrix with differentiated functions and roles in the consortium resulting from complex intercellular communications and signalling that mediates a division of labour amongst cells of the biofilm. Architecturally complex … More Light-based patterning of bacterial cells through induction of biofilm formation processes