This Week in Microbiology

TWiM travels to Michigan State University to celebrate their designation as an ASM Milestones in Microbiology site, and speaks with Vic DiRita, Elizabeth Heath-Heckman, Rich Lenski, and Jim Tiedje about their careers and their research.

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Links for this episode:

• MSU designated a Milestones site (ASM)

• 125 years of impact (MSU)

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

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TWiM explains a bacterial antiviral defense system that uses a noncoding RNA template to build tandem-repeat DNA through a mechanism that parallels how eukaryotic telomerase extends telomeres, and genome sequencing of the Tsimane of Bolivia and the Hadza of Tanzania which reveals over a thousand gut bacterial species shared between the two populations, many now vanishing from industrialized humans, suggesting they co-migrated with our ancestors out of Africa and into the Americas.

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Links for this episode:

• Antiviral immunity via telomerase-like reverse transcription in bacteria (Nature)

• Prehistoric global migration of vanishing gut microbes with humans (Nature)

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 explains how bacterial endosymbionts enhance fungal virulence by disrupting the protective rhizobiome, and the development of rationally engineered Salmonella typhimurium strains with enhanced safety and antitumor efficacy.

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Links for this episode:

• Plant, fungus, endosymbiont, and rhizobiome (PNAS)

• Engineering S. typhimurium to kill tumors (mBio)

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 wonders why archaea are not pathogenic, and reveals how a colibactin produced by a honeybee gut symbiont defends against pathogens.

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Links for this episode:

• Why are archaea not pathogenic? (mBio)

• Archaeal viruses (Archaea)

• Colibactin made in honeybee gut (Nat Micro)

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 explains the finding that Bunsen burners do not decrease deposition of microbe-containing particles, and how gut microbiota generate dinitrosyl iron complexes with cardiometabolic benefits.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Michael Schmidt

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Links for this episode:

• Bunsen burners don't do what you thought they did (Micro Spectrum)

• How does air circulate in passenger planes? | AFP

• How germs travel on planes | Raymond Wang

• Gut bacteria and cardiometabolic health (Cell)

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 explains how movement of DNA among gut bacteria drive large-scale genome mosaicism, and validation of a method for detection of Cyclospora cayetanensis in outbreak-linked fresh produce.

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

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Links for this episode:

• Natural DNA transformation in the gut (ISME J)

• The transformation factor (J Exp Med)

• Validating cyclospora assay (J Food Prot)

• Cyclosporiasis (CDC)

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 explains the discovery of an avirulent bacterial signature associated with the development of recurrence following colorectal cancer surgery, and phage-derived proteins and conjugates that induce pilus detachment.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, and Petra Levin

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Links for this episode:

• Bacterial signature is associated with colon cancer recurrence (Nat Comm)

• Phage-derived proteins induce pilus detachment (J Bact)

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

Send your microbiology questions and comments to [email protected]

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TWiM explains major implications of the link between plastic pollution and antimicrobial resistance, and the discovery of a new organelle, the nitrogen-fixing nitroplast.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, and Michele Swanson

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

• Plastic pollution and antimicrobial resistance (Appl Envir Micro)
• The great Pacific garbage patch (YouTube)
• Rumen microbiome (Nat Biotech)
• Nitrogen-fixing organelle in marine alga (Science)
• This cell just changed biology (YouTube)
• Take the TWiM Listener survey!

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM explains how cannibalism shapes biofilm structure and composition in Bacillus subtilis, and the importance of manganese uptake in uropathogenic E. coli during urinary tract infection.

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Links for this episode:

• Cannibalism shapes biofilm structure (mBio)

• Manganese and uropathogenic E. coli (mBio)

• Regulation of Bacterial MntH Genes (NLM Bookshelf)

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 explains the connection between inflammation caused by microbial glycogen in the gut and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and how disruption of cysteine metabolism leads to synthetic lethality and in vivo fitness impairment in Acinetobacter baumannii.

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Links for this episode:

• Myeloid cell gene prevents inflammatory response to microbial glycogen (Cell Rep)

• Cysteine metabolism and fitness impairment in Acinetobacter baumannii (mBio)

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

Send your microbiology questions and comments to [email protected]