Streptococcus mutans, a dental pathogen, secretes different kinds of lantibiotic and nonlantibiotic bacteriocins. For self-protection, a bacteriocin producer strain must possess one or more cognate immunity mechanisms. We report here the identification of one such immunity complex in S. mutans strain GS-5 that confers protection against Smb, a two-component lantibiotic. The immunity complex tha...

Silicon (Si) promotes the formation of Casparian bands (CB) in rice and reduces radial oxygen loss (ROL). Further transcriptomic approaches revealed several candidate genes involved in the Si-induced formation of CB such as ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter, Class III peroxidases, ligases and transferases. Investigation of these genes by means of overexpression (OE) and knockout (KO) mutan...

Vancoresmycin is a novel tetramic acid antibiotic, probably interfering with functions of the cytoplasmic membrane. To investigate its mode of action, mutants of Streptococcus pneumoniae exhibiting reduced susceptibility to vancoresmycin were isolated at a low frequency. Four of them were further examined and showed similar pleiotropic phenotypes, including reduced growth rate, early autolysis,...

Brucella ovis is a major cause of reproductive failure in rams and it is one of the few well-described Brucella species that is not zoonotic. Previous work showed that a B. ovis mutant lacking a species-specific ABC transporter (ΔabcBA) was attenuated in mice and was unable to survive in macrophages. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of this ABC transporter during intracellular sur...

Annexin 1 (ANXA1) has a well-demonstrated role in early delayed inhibitory feedback of glucocorticoids in the pituitary. ANXA1 is located in folliculo-stellate (FS) cells, and glucocorticoids act on these cells to externalize and stimulate the synthesis of ANXA1. However, ANXA1 lacks a signal sequence so the mechanism by which ANXA1 is externalized from FS cells was unknown and has been investi...

The Gram-negative anaerobic bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis is a major causative agent of periodontal disease. Although P. gingivalis is an anaerobic bacterium, it exhibits aerotolerance and can survive in periodontal pockets, indicating that it must possess a mechanism for protection against oxidative stress, although the precise details are still unclear. Recently, phosphorylation signalin...

Silymarin (standardized extract from the seeds of the Silybum marianum) has been used in the supportive therapy of liver diseases and its cytoprotective activity is believed to be based on antioxidant properties. Our previous works showed hypolipidemic effects of silymarin. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters G5 and G8 play a major role in biliary cholesterol secretion. The ABCA1 transp...

In insects, ABC transporters have been shown to contribute to defence/resistance to insecticides by reducing toxic concentrations in cells/tissues. Despite the extensive studies about this detoxifying mechanism, the temporal patterns of ABC transporter activation have been poorly investigated. Using the malaria vector Anopheles stephensi as a study system, we investigated the expression profile...