Soil profiles are often many meters deep, but with the majority of studies in soil microbiology focusing exclusively on the soil surface, we know very little about the nature of the microbial communities inhabiting the deeper soil horizons. We used phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis to examine the vertical distribution of specific microbial groups and to identify the patterns of microbial ...

The bacterium Bacillus subtilis produces the molecule surfactin, which is known to enhance the spreading of multicellular colonies on nutrient substrates by lowering the surface tension of the surrounding fluid, and to aid in the formation of aerial structures. Here we present experiments and a mathematical model that demonstrate how the differential accumulation rates induced by the geometry o...

Microbes are easily dispersed from one place to another, and immigrant microbes might contain information about the environments from which they came. We hypothesized that part of the microbial community on a flower's surface is transferred there from insect body surfaces and that this community can provide information to identify potential pollinator insects of that plant. We collected insect ...

The application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) to probe the ultrastructure and physical properties of microbial cell surfaces is reviewed. The unique capabilities of AFM can be summarized as follows: imaging surface topography with (sub)nanometer lateral resolution; examining biological specimens under physiological conditions; measuring local properties and interaction forces. AFM is being u...

Contact lenses are a successful form of vision correction. But their use has been associated with an increased risk of microbial keratitis (MK), contact lens related acute red eye (CLARE) as well as contact lens peripheral ulcer (CLPU) (Eltis, 2011). One of the main problems associated with contact lenses is microbial contamination of the lens surface. Microbial contamination further leads to t...

the past decade has witnessed the revival of amniotic membrane transplantation (amt) in ophthalmology. the importance of amt is due to its ability to reduce scarring and inflammation and to enhance wound healing and epithelialization, and also its anti-microbial properties. amniotic membrane has recently been used as a substrate for culturing limbal stem cells for transplantation. it has been u...

Subsurface habitats harbor novel diversity that has received little attention until recently. Accessible subsurface habitats include lava caves around the world that often support extensive microbial mats on ceilings and walls in a range of colors. Little is known about lava cave microbial diversity and how these subsurface mats differ from microbial communities in overlying surface soils. To i...