pended upon the quantity of the maltose and the dextran added as well as the average molecular weight of the dextran added. The combination of all three factors yielded dextran with a relative viscosity as low as 1.6. The decrease in viscosity occurred in an orderly manner. For the recovery of dextran of clinical size, only the addition of dextran was of any value. A yield of 34.6 per cent of t...

Supercoiling motions that accompany the growth of bacterial macrofibers (multicellular filamentous structures formed in B. subtilis by cell division without separation) are responsible for rolling, pivoting, and walking of fibers on a surface. Fibers possess a fulcrum about which they pivot and step in a chiral manner; forces and torques associated with cell growth, when blocked by friction, re...

Resistance of bacterial pathogens toward antibiotics has revived interest in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) motifs as potential therapeutic targets. The LPS of several pathogenic Acinetobacter strains comprises a 4,5-branched Kdo trisaccharide containing an uncommon (2→5)-linkage. In this contribution the first stereoselective glycosylation method for obtaining an α-Kdo-(2→5)-α-Kdo disaccharide in go...

Abstract Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) produced by many bacteria have been investigated by microbiologists, molecular biologists, biochemists, chemical engineers, chemists, polymer experts, and medical researchers over the past many years. Applications of PHA as bioplastics, fine chemicals, implant biomaterials, medicines, and biofuels have been developed. Companies have been established or invol...

Though generally small and gene rich, bacterial genomes are constantly subjected to both mutational and population-level processes that operate to increase amounts of functionless DNA. As a result, the coding potential of bacterial genomes can be substantially lower than originally predicted. Whereas only a single pseudogene was included in the original annotation of the bacterium Escherichia c...

Background PCR-based tools for detection of bacterial infections can considerably shorten the timespan from patient admission to initiation of targeted antibiotherapy. As culture-based methods are operator-sensitive and yield lower rates of identification in longer timespans, dependent on speciesspecific growth rates, there is a need for new techniques leading to rapid identification of the pat...

Mechanistic understanding of antibiotic action can yield crucial insights that aid in the design of new antibiotics. In this issue, Mukhopadhyay et al. (2008) uncover the mechanism by which the antibiotic myxopyronin inhibits bacterial RNA polymerase, suggesting a new target region in RNA polymerase for inhibitor design.