This Week in Microbiology

From ASM Microbe in Atlanta, Georgia, Arturo joins TWiM to reveal the threats that fungi pose to human health, including the notorious Candida auris and many more and how committed experts are researching ways to save us and our food supplies.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Mark O. Martin

Guest: Arturo Casadevall

Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/nKJe5xNUocU

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• Disaster mycology (Biomedica)
• Emergence of C. auris (mBio)
• What if fungi win? (JHU Press)
• Thinking about Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better (Amazon)
• Recorded at ASM Microbe 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Join us at the next ASM Microbe by visiting us at asm.org/microbe
• Matters Microbial
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Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

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TWiM explains a new mechanism for preventing lysogeny through temperate phage-antibiotic synergy, and Salmonella expansion in the murine gut dependency on aspartate derived from reactive oxygen species-mediated microbiota lysis.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Temperate phage-antibiotic synergy (mBio)
• Salmonella expansion dependent on aspartate (Cell Host Micr)
• Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (Wiki)
• A Genetic Switch by Mark Ptashne
• Lysis timing and bacteriophage fitness (Genetics)
• HK97 capsid assembly (Ad Exp Med Biol)
• Mode of action of fluoroquinolones (Drugs)
• Salmonella a foodborne pathogen (CDC)
• Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program (HHMI)
• Sam Kaplan - 30 years of Microbiology (McGovern Medical School)
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TWiM explores how climate change may be increasing our risks to infectious disease and then how the Odyssey literally comes alive in our microbial world but fear not, unlike the Trojans, the bacteria are fighting back and have developed resistance to this novel class of newly developed antimicrobials.   

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Links for this episode:

• Environmental changes fueling diseases (NY Times)
• Global change drivers and risk of infectious diseases (Nature)
• First reported cefiderocol-resistant E. coli in Canada (Clin Micro)
• E. coli cells explode (YouTube)

Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

Send your microbiology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiM explores the plasticity of the adult human small intestinal stoma microbiota, and survival and rapid resuscitation that permit limited productivity in desert microbial communities.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Plasticity of small intestinal stoma microbiome (Cell Host Micr)
• Desert microbial communities (Nat Comm)
• How soil microbes survive in the desert (Science Daily)
• Negev Desert (WikiCommons)
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Today on TWiM, a charcuterie invasion, and how that acid in your stomach may protect from the invading hordes of microbes.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• 2024 Salmonella outbreak linked to charcuterie meats 
• Multitier regulation of the E. coli extreme acid stress response by CsrA
• Commentary: Peeling the onion: additional layers of regulation in the acid stress response
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TWiM reviews a case of E. faecium bacteremia treated with combination bacteriophage and antibiotic therapy, and how dopamine receptor D2 confers colonization resistance via microbial metabolites.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

Guest: Mark O. Martin

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• Matters Microbial
• Distinct Fusobacterium dominates colorectal cancer (Nature)
• Bacterial subspecies that might drive colon cancer (Nature)
• A bacterial strain linked to colon cancer (Nature)
• Spatial perspective on bacteria in tumors (Nature)
• Colorectal cancer in the young (Yale Med)
• Surface colonization by Flavobacterium johnsoniae promotes its survival (mBio)
• THOR, a model microbiome (mBio)
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TWiM reviews a case of E. faecium bacteremia treated with combination bacteriophage and antibiotic therapy, and how dopamine receptor D2 confers colonization resistance via microbial metabolites.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson. Subscribe to TWiM (free) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Android, RSS, or by email.

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• Vincent’s interviews at SXSW
• Bacteriophage and antibiotic therapy for E. faecium bacteremia (mBio)
• Dopamine receptor D2 confers colonization resistance (Nature)
• CDC’s Reports of Selected E. coli Outbreak Investigations
• Brett Finlay’s narrated EPEC animation
• Colonization resistance by gut microbial metabolome (ACS Chem Biol)
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TWiM discusses the identification of natural products from reconstructed ancient bacterial genomes, and how plant mRNAs move into a fungal pathogen via extracellular vesicles to reduce infection.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, and Petra Levin.

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• Natural products from ancient bacterial genomes (Science)
• Plant mRNAs move into fungal pathogens (Cell Host Microb)
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TWiM reviews the ongoing cholera outbreak in Africa, and research showing that gut complement induced by the microbiota blocks pathogens and spares commensal bacteria.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Cholera in Southern Africa (Africa CDC)
• Deadly cholera outbreak in Africa (NY Times)
• Pediatric cholera in sub-Saharan Africa (Curr Op Ped)
• Gut complement spares commensals (Cell)
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TWiM reveals a new population in the blue cheese-making fungus Penicillium roqueforti and identification of a quorum-sensing autoinducer and siderophore in uropathogenic Escherichia coli.

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• New blue cheese-making fungus (Evol Appl)
• Threat to Camenbert cheese (Guardian)
• French Cheese Under Threat (CNRS News)
• Fungadapt project (YouTube)
• Microbes Make the Cheese (ASM)
• Yersiniabactin in uropathogenic Escherichia coli (mBio)
• Public goods and cheating in microbes (Curr Biol)
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Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]