Cell-to-cell bacterial interactions promoted by drier conditions on soil surfaces

Improved Performance of Soil Microbial Fuel Cell by Adding Earthworms

Soil microbial fuel cells (SMFCs) are expected as an application to produce sustainable energy. Here, we focused on soil ecosystems, specifically the earthworms which are known to improve soil-fertility by degrading fallen leaves or plant litter. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of earthworm on power generation of the SMFC. The maximum power density and the internal res...

AFM Specific Identification of Bacterial Cell Fragments on Biofunctional Surfaces

Biointerfaces with a highly sensitive surface designed for specific interaction with biomolecules are essential approaches for providing advanced biochemical and biosensor assays. For the first time, we have introduced a simple AFM-based recognition system capable of visualizing specific bacterial nanofragments and identifying the corresponding bacterial type. For this we developed AFM-adjusted...

Bacterial Cell Metabolism under Anaerobic Conditions

Escherichia coli has been cultivated in a peptone water medium saturated continuously with nitrogen by use of a gas train so as to produce anaerobic conditions. Under these circumstances growth was greatly inhibited. Cultures which originally contained 11 million bacteria per cc. showed on the average only 32 million after 5 hours (as compared with 655 million in similar cultures saturated with...

Protein-lipid interactions on the surfaces of cell membranes.

Control of bacterial virulence by cell-to-cell signalling molecules

Due to increasing microbial resistance to classical antimicrobial drugs, novel alternative antimicrobial approaches are urgently needed. Virulence can be defined as a complex adapting mechanism providing pathogenic bacteria certain advantages in competing with commensal microbiota and host defence mechanisms. Bacteria communicate through small diffusible density dependent signal molecules terme...