Understanding the emergence of the complex organization of biofilms from the interactions of its parts, individual cells and their environment, is the aim of the individual-based modelling (IbM) approach. This IbM is version 2 of BacSim, a model of Escherichia coli colony growth, which was developed into a two-dimensional multi-substrate, multi-species model of nitrifying biofilms. It was compa...

Abstract:
 Heavy rain floods is one of the primary risk factors for human health, and it can significantly
 regulate microbial communities enhance transfer infections within affected areas. Recently, flood crisis becoming severe natural events in Mosul / Iraq. It may continue months during which samples accumulated rainwater were collected.
 Twelve Staphylococcus aureus isolated ...

Aphids are major pests in apple orchards, debilitating the crop and spreading disease. We investigated whether early-season predation by canopy spiders may be effectively controlling aphid numbers in three organic orchards. For this purpose, we monitored the aphid population dynamics from the winter eggs to colony stages and compared this to spider abundances and rates of predation on aphids de...

Colony counting by spreading bacterial suspensions on plating media by various techniques is of general concern. Comparative studies between hand plating (Drigalski-spatula technique) for different time intervals and spiral plating resulted in significant differences in colony counts. Lower counts of Gram-negative bacteria were obtained by using hand plating for more than 10s, compared with sho...

Non-viral gene delivery into human embryonic stem cells (hESCs)is an important tool for controlling cell fate. However, the delivery efficiency remains low due in part to the tight colony structure of the cells which prevents effective exposure towards delivery vectors. We herein report a novel approach to enhance non-viral gene delivery to hESCs by transiently altering the cell and colony stru...

BACKGROUND Colony-stimulating factor-1 (CSF-1), a growth and survival factor for osteoclasts, stimulates these cells to spread and migrate towards a gradient of CSF-1. This may support the translocation of osteoclasts to new sites on the bone surface to be resorbed. Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI 3-K) is a lipid kinase participating in various signal transduction pathways. OBJECTIVE To investi...