Microflash

11/11/2022

The study indicates that the three BA.2 sublineages are causing mild disease in India. However, BA.2.75 has key mutations that are notable for accelerated growth and transmission and require close and effective monitoring.

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants BA.2.74, BA.2.75, and BA.2.76 have appeared recently in India and have already spread to over 40 countries. They have acquired additional mutations in their spike protein compared to BA.2, branching away on the SARS-CoV-2 phylogenetic tree. These added mut...

01/05/2022

Department of Microbiology,  Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College and Sassoon Hospitals, Pune-411001, Maharashtra, India

15/01/2022

Does EBV Cause MS?Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted cytomegalovirus. Serum levels of neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of neuroaxonal degeneration, increased only after EBV seroconversion. These findings cannot be explained by any known risk factor for MS and suggest EBV as the leading cause of MS.

16/02/2020

The Department of Microbiology, B J Government Medical College and Sassoon General Hospitals, Pune, is hosting, “MAHAMICROCON-2020”, the XXVI Maharashtra Chapter Conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists on 12th and 13th September, 2020, with a pre-conference CME. Kindly visit http://www.xxvimahamicrocon2020.in for detail.
Kindly associate with us for this academic feast.
Dr Rajesh Karyakarte
Organizing Secretary,
Deputy Dean, BJGMC, Pune.

17/11/2019

The FDA has approved Fetroja, a siderophore cephalosporin that inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis and binds free iron to gain additional cell entry,

15/11/2019

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2746410895392400&id=421126371254209

In patients with alcoholic hepatitis, cytolysin-positive Enterococcus faecalis strains are correlated with liver disease severity and increased mortality, and in mouse models these strains can be specifically targeted by bacteriophages.

07/11/2019

Issue no. 5, November 2019.

07/11/2019

November issue displayed on notice board, Microbiology department, BJGMC, PUNE.
Microbiome...

05/11/2019

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2481839248598401&id=201822669933415

Unique conditions in a tapeworm’s neck enable stem cells to rapidly grow new body segments.

26/10/2019

New antimicrobial... New hope......."This series of compounds were named “nusbiarylins” based on their target protein NusB and the biaryl structure and were expected to be further developed towards novel antimicrobial drug candidates in the near future.".....
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045206819308041?via%3Dihub

Discovery of antibiotics of a novel mode of action is highly required in the fierce battlefield with multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. Previo…

15/10/2019

New issue!

05/09/2019

New issue displayed in new notice board!

26/08/2019

Unmodified!

26/08/2019

New Logo!

03/08/2019

2nd Issue, July 2019.

15/07/2019

First issue of MICROFLASH!

15/07/2019

Microbiology Monday: This Bacillus subtilis biofilm is expanding asymmetrically toward the Serratia plymuthica while secreting antibiotics and proteases. Within 72 hours, the B. subtilis biofilm has covered and killed the S. plymuthica biofilm. Why?

Both B. subtilis and S. plymuthica form biofilms on plant roots and they compete for the nutrients in this niche. A new Applied and Environmental Microbiology report shows that the plant influences B. subtilis interactions with S. plymuthica during this competition

The plant induces antibiotic synthesis, which gives B. subtilis a fitness advantage over S. plymuthica. The plant benefits from a B. subtilis biofilms that increases plant resistance against pathogens. In this way, the plant indirectly selects for beneficial microbiota members.

Read more in the report: http://bit.ly/2XzXiI0

21/05/2019

A new study suggests that pathogen interference in Wolbachia-infected A. aegypti is not adversely affected by ZIKV/DENV co-infection, which suggests that Wolbachia-infected A. aegypti will likely prove suitable for controlling mosquito-borne diseases in environments with complex patterns of arbovirus transmission.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31107912?dopt=Abstract&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2019 May 20;13(5):e0007443. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0007443. [Epub ahead of print]

15/05/2019

....."Colistin is a last-resort antibiotic that is used to treat severe infections caused by MDR and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) bacteria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated colistin as a “highest priority critically important antimicrobial for human medicine” (WHO, Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine, 5th revision, 2017, https://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/antimicrobials-fifth/en/), as it is often one of the only therapies available for treating serious bacterial infections in critically ill patients. Plasmid-borne mcr genes that confer resistance to colistin pose a threat to public health at an international scale, as they can be transmitted via horizontal gene transfer and have the potential to spread globally. Therefore, the establishment of a complete reference of mcr genes that can be used to screen for plasmid-mediated colistin resistance is essential for developing effective control strategies.".....
https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/3/e00853-19

Ranking of antimicrobial agents for risk management of antimicrobial resistance due to non-human use

07/05/2019

Role of septins in microbial infection
Septins are widely recognized as a component of the cytoskeleton that is essential for cell division. Septins can also recognise cell shape by assembling into filaments on membrane regions that display micrometer-scale curvature (e.g. at the cytokinetic furrow). In addition, septins participate in host–microbe interactions. Studies have shown the following:
1) higher-order septin assemblies enable fungal invasion into plant cells,
2) entrap viral particles at the plasma membrane, and
3) recognize dividing bacterial cells for delivery to lysosomes. Thus, studying septin biology during microbial infection can provide fundamental advances in both cell and infection biology, and suggest new concepts underlying infection control.
For further information read: http://jcs.biologists.org/content/132/9/jcs226266.article-info

Septins are widely recognized as a component of the cytoskeleton that is essential for cell division, and new work has shown that septins can recognise cell shape by assembling into filaments on membrane regions that display micrometer-scale curvature (e.g. at the cytokinetic furrow). Moreover, infe...

07/05/2019

Quorum sensing protects.....
Colonization of the skin by Staphylococcus aureus is associated with exacerbation of atopic dermatitis, It is shown that proteases and phenol-soluble modulin α (PSMα) secreted by S. aureus promoted inflammation in mice. The study shows that clinical isolates of different coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) species residing on normal skin produced autoinducing peptides that inhibited the S. aureus from producing PSMα. Metagenomic analysis of skin microbiome of patients with atopic dermatitis show an increase in S. aureus with a lower CoNS activity. Together, these findings show how members of the normal human skin microbiome can contribute to epithelial barrier homeostasis by using quorum sensing to inhibit S. aureus toxin production.

For more details read:
https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/11/490/eaat8329

Staphylococcus aureus is both a normal skin-resident species and a common bad actor in inflammatory skin conditions. Williams et al. showed that S. aureus relies on quorum sensing to secrete certain toxins and proteases that can cause epithelial barrier damage. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS...

07/05/2019

Microflash --- info faster than a Bolt......