The animal cell is a unique system in which the functioning of its constituent molecules interdependent and coordinated, violation this coordination fatal for cell. One example mutual regulation membrane proteins, whose activity depends on their interaction with lipids. This review reminds us crucial importance lipid component membranes normal function, particular looks at role "cholesterol" co...

BACKGROUND Carotenoids are multifunctional, taxonomically widespread and biotechnologically important pigments. Their biosynthesis serves as a model system for understanding the evolution of secondary metabolism. Microbial carotenoid diversity and evolution has hitherto been analyzed primarily from structural and biosynthetic perspectives, with the few phylogenetic analyses of microbial caroten...

background: candida albicans is one of the most important opportunistic pathogens that suppress immunologic mechanisms of the host. it is speculated that structural and secretory proteins of c. albicans have immunomodulatory effects in cancer. objective: to evaluate the effects of c. albicans structural and secreted proteins on intratumoral cd4/cd8 ratio as well as the survival rate in balb/c t...

Defensins and cathelicidins are the two major families of mammalian anti-microbial proteins. They contribute to host, innate, anti-microbial defense by disrupting the integrity of the bacterial cell membrane. However, several members of the mammalian anti-microbial proteins including defensins and cathelicidins have been shown recently to have chemotactic effects on host cells. Human neutrophil...

The establishment of early life microbiota in the human infant gut is highly variable and plays a crucial role in host nutrient availability/uptake and maturation of immunity. Although high-performance mass spectrometry (MS)-based metaproteomics is a powerful method for the functional characterization of complex microbial communities, the acquisition of comprehensive metaproteomic information i...

Plant immune responses depend on the ability to couple rapid recognition of the invading microbe to an efficient response. During evolution, plant pathogens have acquired the ability to deliver effector molecules inside host cells in order to manipulate cellular and molecular processes and establish pathogenicity. Following translocation into plant cells, microbial effectors may be addressed to...

I. Ahmad et al. (eds.), Microbes and Microbial Technology: Agricultural and Environmental Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7931-5_2, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Culture-based methods are important in investigating the microbial ecology of natural and anthropogenically impacted environments, but they are extremely biased in their evaluation of microbial genetic diver...